Ap History 1 Chapter 13

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Young America

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The Young America Movement was an American political and cultural attitude in the mid-nineteenth century. Inspired by European reform movements of the 1830s (see Young Italy, Young Hegelians), the American group was formed as a political organization in 1845 by Edwin de Leon and George H. Evans. It advocated free trade, social reform, expansion southward into the territories, and support for republican, anti-aristocratic movements abroad. It became a faction in the Democratic Party in the 1850s. Sen. Stephen A. Douglas promoted its nationalistic program in an unsuccessful effort to compromise sectional differences.

Perhaps John L. O'Sullivan captured the general purpose of the Young America Movement in an 1837 editorial for the Democratic Review:

All history is to be re-written; political science and the whole scope of all moral truth have to be considered and illustrated in the light of the democratic principle. All old subjects of thought and all new questions arising, connected more or less directly with human existence, have to be taken up again and re-examined.[1]

Historian Edward L. Widmer has largely placed O'Sullivan and the Democratic Review in New York City at the center of the Young America Movement. In that sense, the movement can be considered mostly urban and middle class, but with a strong emphasis on socio-political reform for all Americans, especially given the burgeoning European immigrant population (particularly Irish-Catholics) in New York in the 1840s.

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Stephen F. Austin

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Stephen Fuller Austin (November 3, 1793 – December 27, 1836), known as the Father of Texas, led the second and ultimately successful colonization of the region by bringing 300 families from the United States. The capital of Texas, Austin in Travis County, Austin County, Austin Bayou, Stephen F. Austin State University in Nacogdoches, Austin College in Sherman, as well as a number of K-12 schools are named in his honor.

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Webster-Ashburton Treaty

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The Webster–Ashburton Treaty, signed August 9, 1842, was a treaty resolving several border issues between the United States and the British North American colonies, particularly a dispute over the location of the Maine–New Brunswick border. It also established the details of the border between Lake Superior and the Lake of the Woods, originally defined in the Treaty of Paris (1783); reaffirmed the location of the border (at the 49th parallel) in the westward frontier up to the Rocky Mountains, originally defined in the Treaty of 1818; called for a final end to the slave trade on the high seas, to be enforced by both signatories; and agreed on terms for shared use of the Great Lakes.

The treaty was signed by United States Secretary of State Daniel Webster and British diplomat Alexander Baring, 1st Baron Ashburton. A plaque commemorating the treaty was placed at the site of the old State Department building in Washington, D.C. where the signing occurred.

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Oregon Trail

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The Oregon Trail is a 2,000-mile (3,200 km) historic east-west wagon route that connected the Missouri River to valleys in Oregon and locations in between. It flourished from the 1840s until the coming of the railroad at the end of the 1860s. The trip on foot took four to six months. It was the oldest of the northern commercial and emigrant trails and was originally discovered and used by fur trappers and traders in the fur trade from about 1811 to 1840. In its earliest days much of the future Oregon Trail was not passable to wagons but was passable everywhere only to men walking or riding horses and leading mule trains. By 1836, when the first Oregon wagon trains were organized at Independence, Missouri, the trail had been improved so much that it was possible to take wagons to Fort Hall, Idaho. By 1843 a rough wagon trail had been cleared to The Dalles, Oregon, and by 1846 all the way around Mount Hood to the Willamette Valley in the state of Oregon. What became called the Oregon Trail was complete even as improved roads, "cutouts", ferries and bridges made the trip faster and safer almost every year.

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Santa Fe Trail

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The Santa Fe Trail was a 19th-century transportation route through central North America that connected Missouri with Santa Fe, New Mexico. Pioneered in 1822 by William Becknell, it served as a vital commercial and military highway until the introduction of the railroad to Santa Fe in 1880. At first an international trade route between the United States and Mexico, it was the 1846 U.S. invasion route of New Mexico during the Mexican–American War.[1]

The route crossed Comancheria, the territory of the Comanches, who demanded compensation for granting rights-of-way. Americans routinely traded with the Comanche along the trail, sometimes finding the trade in Comancheria more profitable than that of Santa Fe.[2]

After the U.S. acquisition of the Southwest, the trail helped open the region to U.S. economic development and settlement, playing a vital role in the expansion of the U.S. into the lands it had acquired. The road route is commemorated today by the National Park Service as the Santa Fe National Historic Trail. A highway route that roughly follows the trail's path through the entire length of Kansas, the southeast corner of Colorado and northern New Mexico has been designated as the Santa Fe Trail National Scenic Byway.

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Joseph Smith

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Joseph Smith, Jr. (December 23, 1805 – June 27, 1844) was an American religious leader and the founder of the Latter Day Saint movement. He was also a theocrat, politician, city planner, military leader, and polygamist.

Smith was raised in western New York during a period of religious enthusiasm. Having been influenced by folk religion as a youth, he claimed the ability to find buried treasure through supernatural means. In the late 1820s, Smith said that an angel had directed him to a buried book of golden plates inscribed with a religious history of ancient American peoples. After publishing what he said was an English translation of the plates as the Book of Mormon, he organized branches of the Church of Christ, a church whose adherents were later called Latter Day Saints or, popularly, Mormons.

In 1831, Smith moved west to Kirtland, Ohio intending to establish the city of Zion in western Missouri, but his plans were frustrated when Missouri settlers expelled the Saints in 1833. After leading an unsuccessful paramilitary expedition to recover the land, Smith began building a temple in Kirtland. In 1837, the church in Kirtland collapsed after a financial crisis, and the following year Smith joined his followers in northern Missouri. A war ensued with Missourians who believed Smith had incited insurrection. When the Saints lost the war, they were expelled, and Smith was imprisoned on capital charges.

After being allowed to escape state custody in 1839, Smith led his followers to settle at Nauvoo, Illinois on Mississippi River swampland, and there he served as both mayor and commander of its large militia, the Nauvoo Legion. In early 1844, he announced his candidacy for President of the United States. That summer, after the Nauvoo Expositor criticized Smith's practice of polgyamy, the Nauvoo city council ordered the paper's destruction. During the ensuing turmoil, Smith first declared martial law and then surrendered to the governor of Illinois who promised his safety. Smith was killed by a mob while awaiting trial in Carthage, Illinois.

Smith's followers revere him as a prophet and regard many of his writings as scripture. His teachings include unique views about the nature of God, cosmology, family structures, political organization, and religious collectivism. His legacy includes a number of religious denominations, which collectively claim a growing membership of over 14 million worldwide.[1]

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Book of Mormon

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The Book of Mormon is a sacred text of the Latter Day Saint movement. It was first published in March 1830 by Joseph Smith, Jr. as The Book of Mormon: An Account Written by the Hand of Mormon upon Plates Taken from the Plates of Nephi.[1] According to Smith's account, and also according to the book's narrative, the Book of Mormon was originally written in otherwise unknown characters referred to as "reformed Egyptian" [2] engraved on golden plates. Smith said that he received these plates in 1827 from an angel named Moroni,[3] whom Smith identified as a resurrected[4] indigenous American who had written and abridged parts of the book over a millennium prior to the encounter. According to Smith, Moroni had buried the plates in a stone box, along with other ancient artifacts,[5] in a hill near Smith's home in Manchester, New York.

The Book of Mormon is the earliest of the defining publications of the Latter Day Saint movement. The churches of the movement typically regard the Book of Mormon not only as scripture, but as a historical record of God's dealings with the ancient inhabitants of the Americas, written by American prophets[6] from perhaps as early as 2600 BC to about AD 421.[7]

The Book of Mormon is divided into smaller books, titled after the individuals named as primary authors and, in most versions, divided into chapters and verses. It is written in English, very similar to the Early Modern English linguistic style of the King James Version of the Bible, and has since been fully or partially translated into 108 languages.[8] The Book of Mormon has a number of original and distinctive doctrinal discussions on subjects such as the fall of Adam and Eve,[9] the nature of the Atonement,[10] eschatology, redemption from physical and spiritual death,[11] and the organization of the latter-day church.

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Brigham Young

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Brigham Young (pronounced /ˈbrɪɡəm/; June 1, 1801 – August 29, 1877) was an American leader in the Latter Day Saint movement and a settler of the western United States. He was the President of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church) from 1847 until his death in 1877. He was also the founder of Salt Lake City and the first governor of Utah Territory, United States. Brigham Young University was named in his honor.

Young had a variety of nicknames, among the most popular being "American Moses,"[2] (alternatively the "Modern Moses" or the "Mormon Moses")[3] because, like the Biblical figure, Young led his followers, the Mormon pioneers, in an exodus through a desert, to what they saw as a promised land. Young was dubbed by his followers the "Lion of the Lord" for his bold personality, and was also commonly called "Brother Brigham" by Latter-day Saints. Young was a polygamist and was involved in controversies regarding black people and the Priesthood, the Utah War, and the Mountain Meadows massacre.

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Nauvoo

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Nauvoo (Hebrew: נָאווּ, Modern Navu Tiberian Nâwû ; “to be beautiful”) is a small city in Hancock County, Illinois, United States. Although the population was just 1,063 at the 2000 census, and despite being difficult to reach due to its location in a remote corner of Illinois, Nauvoo attracts large numbers of visitors[citation needed] for its historic importance and its religious significance to members of both The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and the Community of Christ (formerly Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints), other groups stemming from the Latter Day Saint movement, and groups such as the Icarians. The city and its immediate surrounding area are listed on the National Register of Historic Places as the Nauvoo Historic District. It's the place where the mormons tried to settle before moving west to the great salt lake.

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1844 election

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In the United States presidential election of 1844, Democrat James Knox Polk defeated Whig Henry Clay in a close contest that turned on foreign policy, with Polk favoring the annexation of Texas and Clay opposed.

Democratic nominee James K. Polk ran on a platform that embraced American territorial expansionism, an idea soon to be called Manifest Destiny. At their convention, the Democrats called for the annexation of Texas and asserted that the United States had a “clear and unquestionable” claim to “the whole” of Oregon. By informally tying the Oregon boundary dispute to the more controversial Texas debate, the Democrats appealed to both Northern expansionists (who were more adamant about the Oregon boundary) and Southern expansionists (who were more focused on annexing Texas as a slave state). Polk went on to win a narrow victory over Whig candidate Henry Clay, in part because Clay had taken a stand against expansion, although economic issues were also of great importance. (The slogan "Fifty-four Forty or Fight!” is often incorrectly regarded as being part this president's election campaign rhetoric; it became a popular slogan in the months after the election, used by those proposing the most extreme solution to the Oregon boundary dispute).

This was the last presidential election to be held on different days in different states, as starting with the presidential election of 1848 all states held the election on the same date in November.

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John Tyler

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the tenth President of the United States (1841–1845) and the first to succeed to the office following the death of a predecessor.

A longtime Democratic-Republican, Tyler was nonetheless elected Vice President on the Whig ticket. Upon the death of President William Henry Harrison on April 4, 1841, only a month after his inauguration, a short Constitutional crisis arose over the succession process. Tyler swore the presidential oath of office on April 6, 1841, a precedent that would govern future successions and eventually be codified in the twenty-fifth amendment.

Once he became president he stood against his party's platform and vetoed several of their proposals. As a result, most of his cabinet resigned, and the Whigs expelled him from the party.

Arguably the most famous and significant achievement of Tyler's administration, aside from setting the precedent for presidential succession, was the annexing the Republic of Texas in 1845. Tyler was the first president born after the adoption of the Constitution, the only president to have held the office of President pro tempore of the Senate, and the only former president elected to office in the Confederate government during the Civil War

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James K Polk

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the 11th President of the United States (1845–1849). Polk was born in Mecklenburg County, North Carolina.[1] He later lived in and represented Tennessee. A Democrat, Polk served as Speaker of the House (1835–1839) and Governor of Tennessee (1839–1841). Polk was the surprise ("dark horse") candidate for president in 1844, defeating Henry Clay of the rival Whig Party by promising to annex Texas. Polk was a leader of Jacksonian Democracy during the Second Party System.

Polk was the last strong pre-Civil War president and the first president whose photographs while in office still survive. He is noted for his foreign policy successes. He threatened war with Britain over the issue of which country owned the Oregon Country, then backed away and split the ownership of the region with Britain. When Mexico rejected American annexation of Texas, Polk led the nation to a sweeping victory in the Mexican-American War, which gave the United States most of its present Southwest. He secured passage of the Walker tariff of 1846, which had low rates that pleased his native South, and he established a treasury system that lasted until 1913.

Polk oversaw the opening of the U.S. Naval Academy and the Smithsonian Institution, the groundbreaking for the Washington Monument, and the issuance of the first postage stamps in the United States.

He promised to serve only one term and did not run for reelection. He died of cholera three months after his term ended.

Scholars have ranked him favorably on the list of greatest presidents for his ability to set an agenda and achieve all of it. Polk has been called the "least known consequential president" of the United States.

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Free Development

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if america acquired new territories, democracy and local self government would follow the flag and thus democracy and freedom would be spread across the nation.

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Manifest Destiny

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Manifest Destiny was the 19th century American belief that the United States (often, as Horsman (1981) notes, in the ethnically specific form of the "Anglo-Saxon race") was destined to expand across the North American continent, from the Atlantic Seaboard to the Pacific Ocean. It was used by Democrats in the 1840s to justify the war with Mexico; the concept was denounced by Whigs, and fell into disuse after the mid-19th century.

Advocates of Manifest Destiny believed that expansion was not only wise but that it was readily apparent (manifest) and inexorable (destiny).

The concept of American expansion is much older, but John L. O'Sullivan coined the exact term "Manifest Destiny" in the July/August 1845 issue of the United States Magazine and Democratic Review in an article titled "Annexation."[1][2] It was primarily used by Democrats to support the expansion plans of the Polk Administration, but the idea of expansion faced opposition from Whigs like Henry Clay, Daniel Webster, and Abraham Lincoln who wanted to deepen the economy rather than broaden its expanse. John C. Calhoun was a notable Democrat who generally opposed his party on the issue, which fell out of favor by 1860.[3]

The belief in an American mission to promote and defend democracy throughout the world, as expounded by Abraham Lincoln and Woodrow Wilson, continues to have an influence on American political ideology.[4]

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54-40 or Fight

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The Oregon boundary dispute, or the Oregon Question, arose as a result of competing British and American claims to the Pacific Northwest of North America in the first half of the 19th century. Both the United Kingdom (UK) and the United States (USA) had territorial and commercial aspirations in the region as well as residual claims from treaties with Russia and Spain.[1] The British knew the region as the Columbia District, a fur-trading division of the Hudson's Bay Company (HBC), while Americans referred to it as the Oregon Country. The broadest definition of the disputed region was defined by the following: west of the Continental Divide of the Americas, north of the 42nd parallel north (the northern border of New Spain and after 1821 of Mexico), and south of the parallel 54°40′ north (the southern border of Russian America after 1825).

The Oregon Dispute became important in geopolitical diplomacy between the British Empire and the new American Republic. In 1844 the U.S. Democratic Party, appealing to expansionist sentiment and the popular theme of manifest destiny, asserted that the U.S. had a valid claim to the entire Oregon Country up to Russian America at parallel 54°40′ north. Democratic presidential candidate James K. Polk won the 1844 election, but then sought a compromise boundary along the 49th parallel, the same boundary proposed by previous U.S. administrations. Negotiations between the U.S. and the British broke down, however, and tensions grew as American expansionists like U.S. Senator Edward A. Hannegan of Indiana, or Congressman Leonard Henly Sims, Missouri, which urged Polk to annex the entire Oregon Country north to the parallel 54°40′ north, as the Democrats had called for in the election. The turmoil gave rise to slogans like "Fifty-four Forty or Fight!" and the catchphrase "Manifest Destiny".

The expansionist agenda of Polk and the Democratic Party created the possibility of two different, simultaneous wars, because relations between the United States and Mexico were deteriorating following the annexation of Texas. Neither Britain nor the United States really wanted to fight a third war in 70 years. Just before the outbreak of the war with Mexico, Polk returned to his earlier position on the Oregon boundary and accepted a compromise along the 49th parallel as far as the Strait of Georgia. This agreement was made official in the 1846 Oregon Treaty, and the 49th parallel remains the boundary between the United States and Canada west of Lake of the Woods, other than the marine boundary which curves south to the Strait of Juan de Fuca and so excludes from the United States Vancouver Island and the Gulf Islands. As a result, much of Point Roberts (a small peninsula extending south into the Strait of Georgia from Canada) is an exclave of the United States.

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Zachary Taylor

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the 12th President of the United States (1849-1850) and an American military leader. Initially uninterested in politics, Taylor nonetheless ran as a Whig in the 1848 presidential election, defeating Lewis Cass. Taylor was the last President to hold slaves while in office, and the last Whig to win a presidential election.

Known as "Old Rough and Ready," Taylor had a forty-year military career in the United States Army, serving in the War of 1812, the Black Hawk War, and the Second Seminole War. He achieved fame leading American troops to victory in the Battle of Palo Alto and the Battle of Monterrey during the Mexican–American War. As president, Taylor angered many Southerners by taking a moderate stance on the issue of slavery. He urged settlers in New Mexico and California to bypass the territorial stage and draft constitutions for statehood, setting the stage for the Compromise of 1850. Taylor died just 16 months into his term, the third shortest tenure of any President. He is thought to have died of gastroenteritis. Only Presidents William Henry Harrison and James Garfield served less time. Taylor was succeeded by his Vice President, Millard Fillmore.

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Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo

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the peace treaty, largely dictated by the United States[1][2] to the interim government of a militarily occupied Mexico City, that ended the Mexican-American War (1846 – 48) on February 2, 1848. With the defeat of its army and the fall of the capital, Mexico surrendered to the United States and entered into negotiations to end the war.Under the terms of the treaty negotiated by Trist, Mexico ceded to the United States Upper California and New Mexico. This was known as the Mexican Cession and included all of present-day California, Nevada and Utah as well as most of Arizona, New Mexico and Colorado (see Article V of the treaty). Mexico relinquished all claims to Texas and recognized the Rio Grande as the southern boundary of the United States (see Article V).

The treaty provided for the Mexican Cession of 1.36 million km² (525,000 square miles) to the United States in exchange for 15 million dollars (equivalent to $380 million today).[4] The Treaty also ceded an additional 1,007,935 km² (389,166 square miles), since Mexico had never officially recognized either the independence of the Republic of Texas (1836) or its annexation by the United States (1845), and under this calculation, Mexico lost about 55% of its prewar territory.[5]

The Treaty also ensured safety of existing property rights of Mexican citizens living in the transferred territories. Despite assurances to the contrary, the property rights of Mexican citizens were often not honored by the U.S. in accordance with modifications to and interpretations of the Treaty.[6][7][8] The U.S. also agreed to take over 3.25 million dollars (equivalent to $82.2 million today) in debts that Mexico owed to American citizens.

[edit] ResultsThe land that the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo brought into the United States became, between 1850 and 1912, all or part of the States of California (1850), Kansas (1861), Nevada (1864), Colorado (1876), Wyoming (1890), Utah (1896), New Mexico (1912) and Arizona (1912) as well as the whole of, depending upon interpretation, the entire State of Texas. The remainder (the southern parts) of New Mexico and Arizona were peacefully purchased under Gadsden Purchase, which was carried out in 1853. In this purchase the United States paid an additional 10 million (equivalent to $260 million today), for land intended to accommodate a transcontinental railroad west from the State of Georgia, across Texas, through El Paso, and thence close to the Mexican border to San Diego, California. This railroad was never built, though one somewhat farther north was built between Tucson, Phoenix, and points to the west.

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Winfield Scott

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

Known as "Old Fuss and Feathers" and the "Grand Old Man of the Army," he served on active duty as a general longer than any other man in American history and many historians rate him the ablest American commander of his time. Over the course of his forty-seven-year career, he commanded forces in the War of 1812, the Mexican-American War, the Black Hawk War, the Second Seminole War, and, briefly, the American Civil War, conceiving the Union strategy known as the Anaconda Plan that would be used to defeat the Confederacy. He served as Commanding General of the United States Army for twenty years, longer than any other holder of the office.

A national hero after the Mexican-American War, he served as military governor of Mexico City. Such was his stature that, in 1852, the United States Whig Party passed over its own incumbent President of the United States, Millard Fillmore, to nominate Scott in the United States presidential election. Scott lost to Democrat Franklin Pierce in the general election, but remained a popular national figure, receiving a brevet promotion in 1856 to the rank of lieutenant general, becoming the first American since George Washington to hold that rank.[1]

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John C Fremont

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an American military officer, explorer, and the first candidate of the anti-slavery Republican Party for the office of President of the United States. During the 1840s, that era's penny press accorded Frémont the sobriquet The Pathfinder. It remains in use, and he is sometimes called The Great Pathfinder.[2][3] He retired from the military and moved to the new territory California, after leading a fourth expedition which cost ten lives seeking a rail route over the mountains around the 38th parallel in the winter of 1849.

He became one of the two U.S. Senators of the new state in 1850, and was soon bogged down with lawsuits over land claims between the dispossessions of various land owners during the Mexican-American War, and the explosion of Forty-Niners emigrating during the California Gold Rush.

During the American Civil War he was given command of the armies in the west but made hasty decisions (such as trying to abolish slavery without consulting Washington), and was consequently relieved of his command (fired, then court martialed - receiving a presidential pardon).

Historians portray Frémont as controversial, impetuous, and contradictory. Some scholars regard him as a military hero of significant accomplishment, while others view him as a failure who repeatedly defeated his own best purposes. The keys to Frémont's character and personality may lie in his illegitimate birth, ambitious drive for success, self-justification, and passive-aggressive behavior.[4][5]

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Samuel Morse

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an American contributor to the invention of a single-wire telegraph system based on European telegraphs, co-inventor of the Morse code, and an accomplished painter.

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Frederick Merk

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a historian that studied manifest destiny

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Charles Goodyear

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the first to vulcanize rubber, a process which he discovered in 1839 and patented on June 15, 1844. Although Goodyear is often credited with its invention, modern evidence has proven that the Mesoamericans used stabilized rubber for balls and other objects as early as 1600 BC.[1]

Goodyear discovered the vulcanization process accidentally after five years of searching for a more stable rubber.[2]

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Cyrus McCormick

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an American inventor and founder of the McCormick Harvesting Machine Company, which became part of International Harvester Company in 1902.[1] He and many members of the McCormick family became prominent Chicagoans. Although McCormick is often called the "inventor" of the mechanical reaper, it was based on work by others, including his family members.

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Walt Whitman

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an American poet, essayist and journalist. A humanist, he was a part of the transition between transcendentalism and realism, incorporating both views in his works. Whitman is among the most influential poets in the American canon, often called the father of free verse.[1] His work was very controversial in its time, particularly his poetry collection Leaves of Grass, which was described as obscene for its overt sexuality.

Born on Long Island, Whitman worked as a journalist, a teacher, a government clerk, and–in addition to publishing his poetry–was a volunteer nurse during the American Civil War. Early in his career, he also produced a temperance novel, Franklin Evans (1842). Whitman's major work, Leaves of Grass, was first published in 1855 with his own money. The work was an attempt at reaching out to the common person with an American epic. He continued expanding and revising it until his death in 1892. After a stroke towards the end of his life, he moved to Camden, New Jersey, where his health further declined. He died at age 72 and his funeral became a public spectacle.[2][3]

Whitman's sexuality is often discussed alongside his poetry. Though biographers continue to debate his sexuality, he is usually described as either homosexual or bisexual in his feelings and attractions.[4] However, there is disagreement among biographers as to whether Whitman had actual sexual experiences with men.[5] Whitman was concerned with politics throughout his life. He supported the Wilmot Proviso and opposed the extension of slavery generally. His poetry presented an egalitarian view of the races, and at one point he called for the abolition of slavery, but later he saw the abolitionist movement as a threat to democracy.[6]

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Herman Melville

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an American novelist, short story writer, essayist, and poet. He is best known for his novel Moby-Dick and the posthumous novella Billy Budd. His first three books gained much contemporary attention (the first, Typee, becoming a bestseller), but after a fast-blooming literary success in the late 1840s, his popularity declined precipitously in the mid-1850s and never recovered during his lifetime. When he died in 1891, he was almost completely forgotten. It was not until the "Melville Revival" in the early 20th century that his work won recognition, especially Moby-Dick which was hailed as one of the literary masterpieces of both American and world literature. He was the first writer to have his works collected and published by the Library of America.

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Daniel Webster

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a leading American statesman and senator during the nation's Antebellum Period. He first rose to regional prominence through his defense of New England shipping interests. Webster's increasingly nationalistic views and the effectiveness with which he articulated them led him to become one of the most famous orators and influential Whig leaders of the Second Party System. As a leader of the Whig Party, he was one of the nation's most prominent conservatives, leading opposition to Democrat Andrew Jackson and the Democratic party. He was a spokesman for modernization, banking and industry. He was an acknowledged elitist.[2] During his forty years in national politics Webster served in the House of Representatives for ten years (representing New Hampshire), the Senate for nineteen years (representing Massachusetts), and served as the Secretary of State for three presidents.

Webster was one of the most successful lawyers of the era, appearing in several key Supreme Court cases that established important constitutional precedents that bolstered the authority of the federal government. As Secretary of State, he negotiated the Webster-Ashburton Treaty that established the definitive eastern border between the United States and Canada. Primarily recognized for his Senate tenure, Webster was a key figure in the institution's "Golden days". So well-known was his skill as a Senator throughout this period that Webster became the northern member of a trio known as the "Great Triumvirate", with his colleagues Henry Clay from the west and John C. Calhoun from the south. His "Reply to Hayne" in 1830 was generally regarded as "the most eloquent speech ever delivered in Congress." [3]

As with his fellow Whig Henry Clay, Webster's desire to see the Union preserved and civil war averted led him to search out compromises designed to stave off the sectionalism that threatened war between the Northern States and those of the South. Webster tried and failed three times to become President of the United States. In 1957, a Senate Committee selected Webster as one of the five greatest U.S. Senators, along with Henry Clay, John C. Calhoun, Robert La Follette, and Robert Taft. [4]

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Empresarios

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a person who, in the early years of the settlement of Texas, had been granted the right to settle on Mexican land in exchange for recruiting and taking responsibility for new settlers. The word is Spanish for entrepreneur

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Santa Anna

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Antonio de Padua María Severino López de Santa Anna y Pérez de Lebrón (21 February 1794 –; 21 June 1876),[1] often known as Santa Anna[2] or López de Santa Anna, self-called the Napoleon of the West, was a Mexican political leader, general, and president who greatly influenced early Mexican and Spanish politics and government. Santa Anna first fought against the independence from Spain, and then supported it. He was not the first caudillo (military leader) of Mexico, but he was among the most original.[3] He rose to the ranks of general and president at various times over a turbulent 40-year career. He was President of Mexico on eleven non-consecutive occasions over a period of 22 years.

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Tejanos

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a term used to identify a Texan of Hispanic descent or cultural background.

Historically, the Spanish term Tejano has been used to identify different groups of people. During the Spanish Colonial times, the term applied to Spanish settlers of the region now known as Texas (first as part of the New Spain and then in 1821 as part of Mexico).[citation needed] During the times of independent south Texas, the term also applied to other Spanish-speaking Texans and hispanicized Germans and other Europeans.[citation needed] In modern times, the term is more broadly used to identify a Texan of Mexican descent and sometimes Texan of colonial Spanish descent, though other definitions may narrow it down to only people tracing their origins to northern Mexico.

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Secularization Act

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In Mexico, it emancipated the Indians from church control and opened the mission lands to settlement.

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Davy Crockett

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a celebrated 19th-century American folk hero, frontiersman, soldier and politician. He is referred to in popular culture as Davy Crockett and after the 1950s by the epithet “King of the Wild Frontier.” He represented Tennessee in the U.S. House of Representatives, served in the Texas Revolution, and died at the Battle of the Alamo.

Crockett grew up in East Tennessee, where he gained a reputation for hunting and storytelling. After being elected to the rank of colonel in the militia of Lawrence County, Tennessee, he was elected to the Tennessee state legislature in 1821. In 1826, Crockett was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives. Congressman Crockett vehemently opposed many of the policies of President Andrew Jackson, most notably the Indian Removal Act. Crockett's opposition to Jackson's policies led to his defeat in the 1834 elections, prompting his angry departure to Texas shortly thereafter. In early 1836, Crockett took part in the Texas Revolution and was killed at the Battle of the Alamo in March.

Crockett became famous in his own lifetime for larger-than-life exploits popularized by stage plays and almanacs. After his death, he continued to be credited with brazen acts of mythical proportion. These led in the 20th century to television and movie portrayals, and he became one of the best-known American folk heroes.[1][2]

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Sam Houston

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a 19th-century American statesman, politician, and soldier. He was born in Timber Ridge in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia, of Scots-Irish descent. Houston became a key figure in the history of Texas and was elected as the first and third President of the Republic of Texas, US Senator for Texas after it joined the United States, and finally as governor of the state. He refused to swear loyalty to the Confederacy when Texas seceded from the Union, and resigned as governor.[2] To avoid bloodshed, he refused an offer of a Union army to put down the Confederate rebellion. Instead, he retired to Huntsville, Texas, where he died before the end of the Civil War.

His earlier life included migration to Tennessee from Virginia, time spent with the Cherokee Nation (into which he later was adopted as a citizen and took a wife), military service in the War of 1812, and successful participation in Tennessee politics. Houston is the only person in U.S. history to have been the governor of two different states (although other men had served as governors of more than one American territory).

In 1827 Houston was elected Governor of Tennessee as a Jacksonian.[3] In 1829 Houston resigned as Governor and relocated to Arkansas Territory.[4] Shortly afterwards he relocated to Texas, then a Mexican province, and became a leader of the Texas Revolution.[5] He supported annexation by the United States.[6] In 1832 Houston was involved in an altercation with a US Congressman, followed by a high-profile trial.[7] The city of Houston is named after him. Houston's reputation was honored after his death: posthumous commemoration has included a memorial museum, a U.S. Army base, a national forest, a historical park, a university, and the largest free-standing statue of an American.[8]

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Lone Star Republic

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The Republic of Texas was an independent nation in North America, bordering the United States and Mexico, that existed from 1836 to 1846.

Formed as a break-away republic from Mexico by the Texas Revolution, the state claimed borders that encompassed an area that included all of the present U.S. state of Texas, as well as parts of present-day New Mexico, Oklahoma, Kansas, Colorado, and Wyoming based upon the Treaties of Velasco between the newly created Texas Republic and Mexico. The eastern boundary with the United States was defined by the Adams-Onís Treaty between the United States and Spain, in 1819. Its southern and western-most boundary with Mexico was under dispute throughout the existence of the Republic, with Texas claiming that the boundary was the Rio Grande, and Mexico claiming the Nueces River as the boundary. This dispute would later become a trigger for the Mexican–American War, after the annexation of Texas by the United States.