History Test #5

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The Whig Party

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Jackson's destruction of the Bank sparked a heated debate within the leadership of the Democratic Party. Some, such as Clay and Webster, believed that Jackson had violated the Constitution in killing the Bank and introduced a motion to censure the president. Other politicians followed suit, and Clay and Webster quickly became the leaders of a new political faction. Calling themselves the Whigs (in reference to an British political party opposed to royal prerogatives), they stood against Jackson and in favor of progressive social reforms, better education, internal improvements, and limits on westward expansion. The Whigs embraced the transition to a market economy and thus won support from the wealthy manufacturers in the North as well as the cotton-growing plantation owners in the South.

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Manifest Destiny

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Journalist John L. O'Sullivan coined the phrase "Manifest Destiny" in 1845. He wrote of "our manifest destiny to overspread and to possess the whole of our continent which Providence has given us for the development of the great experiment of liberty." MD referred to the belief of many Americans that it was the nation's destiny and duty to expand and conquer the West in the name of God, nature, civilization, and progress.

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Mormons

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Another new denomination from the Burned-Over District was the Church of Latter Day Saints, or Mormon Church. Founded by Ohioan Joseph Smith in 1830, Mormons believed God had entrusted them with a new set of scriptures called the Book of Mormon. Because Smith also advocated polygamy, Mormons faced intense hostility and persecution from Protestants throughout the Midwest. , the territory settled by the Mormons, eventually became a U.S. territory after the Mexican War, but did not become a state until 1896, when Mormons agreed to abandon the practice of polygamy.

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Gag rule

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Passed by Southerners in Congress in 1836. The gag rule tabled all abolitionist petitions in Congress and thereby prevented antislavery discussions. The gag rule was repealed in 1845, under increased pressure from Northern abolitionists and those concerned with the rule’s restriction of the right to petition.

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Seneca Falls Convention

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In 1848, Lucretia Mott and Elizabeth Cady Stanton organized a women’s rights convention in Seneca Falls, New York. The Seneca Falls Convention issued a Declaration of Sentiments, modeled on the Declaration of Independence, that stated that all men and women are created equal. The Declaration and other reformist strategies, however, effected little change. While some states passed Married Women’s Property Acts to allow married women to retain their property, women would have to wait until 1920 to gain the vote.

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William Lloyd Garrison

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With the publication of the first issue of the Liberator on 1 January 1831, William Lloyd Garrison became the undisputed leader of the U.S. abolitionist movement. Garrison called for the “immediate” and “complete” emancipation of slaves. Yet he was also a confirmed advocate of nonviolence. In 1838, he and other abolitionists formed the New England Non‐Resistance Society. In its “Declaration of Sentiments,” Garrison pledged its members to oppose all preparation and exercise of war and all cooperation with institutions of war. Garrison's legacy is most visible in the pacifist‐feminist‐antiracist lives of succeeding generations of the family who participated in post–Civil War freedmen's associations, the 1898 anti‐imperialist impetus, the peace and antiwar movements from 1915 to today, the founding of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, and the antinuclear and environmental movements.

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Grimke Sisters

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U.S. antislavery crusaders and women's rights advocates. Sarah Grimké and her sister Angelina Grimké were born to a wealthy slaveholding family but developed an early dislike of slavery. In the mid-1820s they became Quakers and moved to the North. From 1835 they wrote letters and pamphlets urging Southern women to use moral force against slavery, and they freed the slaves they had persuaded their mother to apportion to them as their inheritance. They lectured on antislavery throughout New England as the first female agents of the American Anti-Slavery Society, enlisting women in the abolitionist cause and becoming pioneers in the women's rights movement. In 1838 Angelina married Theodore Weld, and the sisters collaborated with him.

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Brook Farm

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Short-lived utopian experiment in communal living (1841 – 47) in West Roxbury, Mass. (near Boston), founded by George Ripley. The best known of the many utopian communities organized in the U.S. in the mid-19th century, Brook Farm was to combine the thinker and the worker, to guarantee the greatest mental freedom, and to prepare a society of liberal, cultivated persons whose lives would be more wholesome and simpler than they could be amid the pressure of competitive institutions. It is remembered for the distinguished literary figures and intellectual leaders associated with it, including Charles A. Dana & Nathaniel Hawthorne. It was also noted for the modern educational theory of its excellent school. See also Oneida Community.

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Workingmen's Party

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First labour-oriented U.S. political party. It was formed in Philadelphia (1828) and New York (1829) by craftsmen, skilled journeymen, and reformers who demanded a 10-hour workday, free public education, abolition of debtor imprisonment, and an end to competition from prison contract labour. Leaders included Thomas Skidmore, Fanny Wright, Robert Dale Owen, and George H. Evans, who established the Working Man's Advocate, the first labour newspaper, in 1829. Factional disputes split the party in the 1830s, and many in New York joined the reform Locofoco Party.

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Republic of Texas

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The Republic of Texas was a sovereign state in North America between the United States and Mexico that existed from 1836 to 1845. Formed as a break-away republic from Mexico as a result of the Texas Revolution, the nation claimed borders that encompassed an area that included all of the present U.S. state of Texas based upon the Treaties of Velasco between the newly created Texas republic and Mexico. 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.

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Mexican American War

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The Mexican-American War[1] was an armed military conflict between the United States and Mexico from 1846 to 1848 in the wake of the 1845 U.S. annexation of Texas. Mexico did not recognize the secession of Texas in 1836; it considered Texas a rebel province. In the United States, the war was a partisan issue with most Whigs opposing it and most southern Democrats, animated by a popular belief in the Manifest Destiny, supporting it. In Mexico, the war was considered a matter of national pride. The most important consequence of the war for the United States was the Mexican Cession in which the Mexican territories were ceded to the United States under the terms of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. In Mexico, the enormous loss of territory following the war encouraged its government to enact policies to colonize its northern territories as a hedge against further losses.

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The Gold Rush

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In January 1848, an American carpenter struck gold in California’s Sierra Nevada Mountains. As news of this discovery drifted east, a gold rush began, drawing hordes to the West Coast in search of their fortunes. California attracted about 100,000 immigrants in a single year, including Mexicans, Europeans, and Americans from the East coast. This influx of settlers led to the growth of numerous cities and mining towns, and pressure grew for California to organize its own government, either independent of the Union or as a state.