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128 Cards in this Set

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Corrupt Bargain
agreement between presidential candidates Henry Clay and John Quincy Adams during the disputed election of 1824; Clay threw his support to Adams in the House of Representatives, which decided the election, and in return, Adams appointed Clay secretary of state. Andrew Jackson, who had a plurality (but not a majority) of the popular and electoral votes, believed he had been cheated out of the presidency.
Daniel Webster
noted orator, constitutional lawyer, senator, secretary of state, and major spokesman for nationalism and the union in the 1830s, 1840s, and 1850s.
Democratic Party
the modern-day, major political party whose antecedents can be traced to the Democratic Republican Party of the 1790s and early 1800s; it was born after the disputed election of 1824, in which the candidates—all Democratic Republicans—divided on issues and by sections. Supporters of Andrew Jackson, outraged by the election’s outcome, organized around Jackson to prepare for the election of 1828. After that election, this organization became known as the Democratic Party.
Exposition and Protest
document secretly written by Vice President John Calhoun in support of nullification; calling on compact theory, he argued the tariff of 1828 was unconstitutional and that South Carolina could lawfully refuse to collect it.
“His Accidency”
nickname given to John Tyler in 1841by his opponents when he assumed the presidency upon the death of William Henry Harrison; the first vice president to succeed to the presidency, his nickname reflected his conflict with the Whig party leaders over rechartering the National Bank, raising the tariff, and supporting internal improvements at government expense.
Indian Removal Act (1830)
gave the president authority to negotiate treaties with southeastern tribes and to trade their land in the east for territory in the west; it also provided money for land transfer and relocation of the tribes.
John C. Calhoun
vice president under both John Quincy Adams and Andrew Jackson; he wrote Exposition and Protest and led the nullification fight in 1832 and 1833. As senator and vice president, he was the leading voice for southern states’ rights from 1828 to 1850.
John Quincy Adams
son of President John Adams and secretary of state who helped purchase Florida and formulate the Monroe Doctrine and president who supported an activist government and economic nationalism; after Jackson defeated his bid for a second term in 1828, he continued to serve America as a member of Congress.
Market Revolution
the process that took place in nineteenth-century America in which an economy dominated by small farms and workshops was transformed into an economy in which farmers and manufacturers produced for a distant cash market; it was also characterized by the emergence of a permanent “working class.” These changes had significant consequences for American social institutions, religious practices, political ideology, and cultural patterns.
Martin Van Buren
senator, vice president, and president of the United States; the Panic of 1837 ruined his presidency, and he was voted out of office in 1840. He later supported the Free Soil Party.
Nullification
theory that the states created the Constitution as a compact among them and that they were the final judge of constitutionality of federal law; the doctrine held that states could refuse to obey or enforce federal laws with which they disagreed. The theory was first presented in the Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions (1798) and reappeared in Exposition and Protest (1828).
Panic of 1837
a major depression that lasted from 1837 to 1844; crop failures, European financial troubles, and the Specie Circular all contributed to the crash, which helped ruin the presidency of Martin Van Buren.
Pet banks
financial institutions friendly to Andrew Jackson’s administration that received federal funds when he vetoed the Second National Bank’s recharter in 1832 and removed all government deposits from it.
Specie Circular (1836)
a federal government action to dampen inflation brought on by land speculation following the closure of the Second National Bank; Jackson issued an order requiring payment for public lands only in gold or silver. This action contracted credit, caused overextended banks to fail, and precipitated the Panic of 1837.
Spoils system
practice of appointing people to government positions as a reward for their loyalty and political support; Jackson was accused of abusing this power, yet he only removed about 20 percent of office holders during his tenure.
Tariff of Abominations
name given to a high tariff passed in 1828; after years of steadily rising duties, this tariff raised rates on certain goods to an all-time high, leading to the nullification crisis of 1832.
Trail of Tears (1838)
the removal of some 18,000 Cherokees, evicted from lands in southeastern United States and marched to Indian Territory (Oklahoma); nearly 25 percent of the people perished from disease and exhaustion during the trip.
Whigs
political party formed in 1832 in opposition to Andrew Jackson; led by Henry Clay, it opposed executive usurpation (a strong president) and advocated rechartering the National Bank, distributing western lands, raising the tariff, and
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funding internal improvements. It broke
apart over the slavery issue in the early 1850s.
Abby Kelley
effective public speaker in the American Anti-Slavery Society; her election to an all-male committee caused the final break between William Garrison and his abolitionist critics in 1840 that split the organization.
American Anti-Slavery Society
organization of reformers who embraced moral persuasion to end slavery; founded in 1833, it opposed gradual emancipation, rejected compensation to slaveholders, supported many types of reform, and welcomed women as full and active members.
American Colonization Society
organization founded in 1817 that advocated sending freed slaves to a colony in Africa; it established the colony of Liberia in 1827 and encouraged free African Americans to emigrate there as well.
American and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society
organization founded in 1840 and led by the Tappan brothers that opposed the radical ideas of William Lloyd Garrison, especially his attacks on the churches and the Constitution; it followed a more moderate approach and supported the political activities of the Liberty Party.
American Society for the Promotion of Temperance
first national temperance organization, founded in 1826, which set agents to preach total abstinence from alcohol; the society pressed individuals to sign pledges of sobriety and states to prohibit the use of alcohol.
Brook Farm
utopian society established by transcendentalist George Ripley near Boston in 1841; members shared equally in farm work and leisure discussions of literature and art. Author Nathaniel Hawthorne and others became disenchanted with the experiment, and it collapsed after a fire in 1847.
Burned-over district
area of New York State along the Erie Canal that was constantly aflame with revivalism and reform; as wave after wave of fervor broke over the region, groups such as the Mormons, Shakers, and Millerites found support among the residents.
Charles Finney
a leading evangelist of the Second Great Awakening; he preached that each person had capacity for spiritual rebirth and salvation, and that through individual effort one could be saved. His concept of “utility of benevolence” proposed the reformation of society as well as of individuals.
Compensated Emancipation
approach to ending slavery that called for slaveholders to be paid for the loss of their “property” as slaves were freed; such proposals were based on the belief that slaveholders would be less resistant to abolition if the economic blow were softened by compensation. A variety of such programs were proposed, some with the support of government leaders, up to and even during the Civil War. Some compensated emancipation existed on a very small scale, as some anti-slavery organizations purchased slaves and then set them free.
Cult of domesticity
the belief that as the fairer sex, women occupied a unique and specific social position and that they were to provide religious and moral instruction in the home but avoid the rough world of politics and business in the larger sphere of society.
Declaration of Sentiments
series of resolutions issued at the end of the Seneca Falls Convention in 1848; modeled after the Declaration of Independence, the list of grievances called for economic and social equality for women, along with a demand for the right to vote.
Dorothea Dix
schoolteacher turned reformer; she was a pioneer for humane treatment of the mentally ill. She lobbied state legislatures to create separate hospitals for the insane and to remove them from the depravity of the penal system.
Elizabeth Cady Stanton
pioneer in the women’s movement; she organized the Seneca Falls Convention in 1848 and fought for women’s suffrage throughout the 1800s.
Frederick Douglass
former slave who became an effective abolitionist with an authenticity to his speeches unmatched by other antislavery voices; initially a follower of William Lloyd Garrison, he broke away and started his own abolitionist newspaper, The North Star. From the 1840s to his death in 1895, he was the leading black spokesman in America.
Gradual Emancipation
approach to ending slavery that called for the phasing out of slavery over a period of time; many gradual emancipation proposals were built around the granting of freedom to children of slaves who were born after a specified date, usually when they attained a specified age; in this way, as existing slaves aged and died, slavery would gradually die too. Many of the northern states, which abolished slavery following the American Revolution, adopted this method of ending the institution.
Horace Mann
reformer who led a crusade to improve public education in America; as secretary of the Massachusetts Board of Education, he established a minimum school term, formalized teacher training, and moved curriculum away from religious training toward more secular subjects.
James Birney
former slaveholder who at one time was a member of the American Colonization Society, the American Anti-Slavery Society, and the American and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society; in 1840 and 1844, he ran for president on the Liberty Party ticket.
Lewis and Arthur Tappan
founders of the American and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society; as successful businessmen, they funded many antislavery activities in the 1830s and 1840s. They also supported the Liberty Party in the 1840s.
Liberty Party
political party formed in 1840 that supported a program to end the slave trade and slavery in the territories and the District of Columbia; James
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Birney ran as the party
candidate in 1840 and 1844. In 1848, it merged into the Free Soil Party.
Lucretia Mott
Quaker activist in both the abolitionist and women’s movements; with Elizabeth Cady Stanton, she was a principal organizer of the Seneca Falls Convention in 1848.
Maine Law (1851)
first statewide attempt to restrict the consumption of alcohol; the law prohibited the manufacture and sale of alcohol except for medical reasons.
Sarah and Angelina Grimke
Quaker sisters from South Carolina who came north and became active in the abolitionist movement; Angelina married Theodore Weld, a leading abolitionist, and Sarah wrote and lectured on a variety of reforms including women’s rights and abolition.
Second Great Awakening
period of religious revivals between 1790 and 1840 that preached the sinfulness of man yet emphasized salvation through moral action; it sent a message to turn away from sin and provided philosophical underpinnings of the reforms of the 1830s.
Susan B. Anthony
friend and partner of Elizabeth Cady Stanton in the struggle for women’s rights; meeting in 1851, Anthony and Stanton founded the National Woman Suffrage Association after the Civil War. The Nineteenth Amendment, which extended the right to vote to women in 1920, is sometimes called the “Anthony” amendment.
Transcendentalists
writers who believed in the search for reality and truth through spiritual intuition; they held that man was capable of discovering truth without reference to established authority. This belief justified the reformers’ challenges to the conventional thinking of their time.
William Lloyd Garrison
most prominent abolitionist leader of the antebellum period; he published the antislavery newspaper The Liberator and founded the American Anti-Slavery Society.
Alamo
mission and fort that was the site of a siege and battle during the Texas Revolution, which resulted in the massacre 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 through 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 (DC), 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 Liberty Party in 1848; adopting a 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 by 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 trans-continental 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 aggressive 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
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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, and supported temperance, a waiting period for good citizenship, and literacy tests. Officially the American Party, its more commonly used nickname came from its members’ secrecy and refusal to tell strangers anything about the group. When questioned, they would only reply, “I know nothing.”
Lewis Cass
Democratic senator who proposed popular sovereignty 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 together the rhetoric of economic necessity, 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 extension 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 in 1860-1861.
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 sell Cuba, the United States would be justified in seizing it. It was quickly repudiated by the U.S. government but it added to the 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 organized, 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 Kansas-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, 1835-1836, 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, aristocratic 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 served 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 fifteen million dollars for the land, but the land cession amounted to nearly half the nation’s territory.
Wilmot 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
arguably the finest military figure in America from the War of 1812 to the Civil War; he distinguished himself in the Mexican War, ran unsuccessfully for president (1852), and briefly commanded the Union armies at the beginning of the Civil War.
Zachary Taylor
military hero of Mexican War and the last Whig elected president (1848); his sudden death in July 1850 allowed supporters of the Compromise of 1850 to get the measures through Congress.
Abraham Lincoln
president of the United States, 1861-1865; he is generally rated among America’s greatest presidents for his leadership in restoring the Union. Lincoln was assassinated April 14, 1865, by John Wilkes Booth before he could implement his Reconstruction program.
Andrew Johnson
vice president who took over after Lincoln’s assassination; an ex-Democrat with little sympathy for former slaves; his battles with Radical Republicans resulted in his impeachment in 1868. He avoided conviction and removal from office by one vote.
Border States
Maryland, Delaware, Kentucky, and Missouri; these slave states stayed in the Union and were crucial to Lincoln’s political and military strategy. He feared alienating them with emancipation of slaves and adding them to the Confederate cause.
Carpetbaggers
northerners who went South to participate in Reconstruction governments; although they possessed a variety of motives, southerners often viewed them as opportunistic, poor whites—a carpetbag was cheep luggage—hoping to exploit the South.
Charles Sumner
senator from Massachusetts who was attacked on the floor of the Senate (1856) for antislavery speech; he required three years to recover but returned to the Senate to lead the Radical Republicans and to fight for racial equality. Sumner authored Civil Rights Act of 1875.
Compromise of 1877
agreement that ended the disputed election of 1876 between Rutherford Hayes and Samuel Tilden; under its terms, the South accepted Hayes’s election. In return, the North agreed to remove the last troops from the South, support southern railroads, and accept a southerner into the Cabinet. The Compromise of 1877 is generally considered to mark the end of Reconstruction.
Copperheads
northerners (mostly Democrats) who supported the southern cause; they were strongest in Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois. Former Ohio congressman Clement L. Vallandigham was the most notorious Copperhead. Many of Lincoln’s arbitrary arrests were directed against this group.
Cotton Diplomacy
a failed southern strategy to embargo cotton from England until Great Britain recognized and assisted the Confederacy; southerners hoped the economic pressure resulting from Britain’s need for cotton for its textile factories would force Britain to aid the South. But direct aid was never forthcoming.
Dred Scott decision (1857)
Chief Justice Roger Taney led a pro-slavery Supreme Court to uphold the extreme southern position on slavery; his ruling held that Scott was not a citizen (nor were any African Americans), that slavery was protected by the Fifth Amendment and could expand into all territories, and that the Missouri Compromise was unconstitutional.
Emancipation Proclamation
executive order issued January 1, 1863, granting freedom to all slaves in states that were in rebellion; Lincoln issued it using his constitutional authority as commander-in-chief, as a military measure to weaken the South’s ability to continue the war. It did not affect the Border States or any region under northern control on January 1. However, it was a stepping stone to the Thirteenth Amendment.
Fifteenth Amendment (1870)
granted black males the right to vote and split former abolitionists and women’s rights supporters, who wanted women included as well.
Fourteenth Amendment (1868)
granted citizenship to any person born or naturalized in the United States; this amendment protects citizens from abuses by state governments, and ensures due process and equal protection of the law. It overrode the Dred Scott decision.
Freedmen’s Bureau
a U.S. government-sponsored agency that provided food, established schools, and tried to redistribute land to former slaves as part of Radical Reconstruction; it was most effective in education, where it created over 4,000 schools in the South.
George McClellan
Union general who was reluctant to attack Lee because of military / political reasons; his timidity prompted Lincoln to fire him twice during the war. He ran unsuccessfully for president against Lincoln in 1964 on an antiwar platform.
Harriet Beecher Stowe
author of Uncle Tom’s Cabin, a bestselling novel about the cruelty of slavery; often called the greatest propaganda novel in United States history, the book increased tension between sections and helped bring on the Civil War.
James Buchanan
weak, vacillating president of the United States, 1857-1861; historians rate him as a failure for his ineffective response to secession and the formation of the Confederacy in 1960 and 1861.
Jefferson Davis
president of the Confederate States of America; a leading southern politician of the 1850s, he believed slavery essential to the South and held that it should expand into the territories without restriction. He served as U.S. senator from Mississippi (1847-1851, 1857-1861) and secretary of war (1853-1857) before becoming president of the Confederate States of America (1861-1865). After the war, he served two years in prison for his role in the rebellion.
John Breckinridge
vice president under James Buchanan and Democratic presidential nominee in 1860 who supported slavery and states’ rights; he split the Democratic vote with Stephen Douglas and lost the election to Lincoln. He served in Confederate army and as secretary of war.
John Brown
violent abolitionist who murdered slaveholders in Kansas and Missouri (1856-1858) before his raid at Harpers Ferry (1859), hoping to incite a
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slave rebellion; he failed and was executed, but his
martyrdom by northern abolitionists frightened the South.
John Fremont
explorer, soldier, politician, and first presidential nominee of the Republican Party (1856); his erratic personal behavior and his radical views on slavery made him controversial and unelectable.
Ku Klux Klan
terrorist organization active throughout the South during Reconstruction and after, dedicated to maintaining white supremacy; through violence and intimidation, it tried to stop freedmen from exercising their rights under the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments.
Radical Republicans
Republican faction in Congress who demanded immediate emancipation of the slaves at the war’s beginning; after the war, they favored racial equality, voting rights, and land distribution for the former slaves. Lincoln and Johnson opposed their ideas as too extreme.
Robert E. Lee
highly regarded Confederate general who was first offered command of the Union armies but declined; Lee was very successful until he fought against Ulysses S. Grant in 1864 and 1865. He surrendered the Army of Northern Virginia to Grant on April 9, 1865, to end major fighting in the war.
Scalawags
white southerners who cooperated with and served in Reconstruction governments; generally eligible to vote, they were usually considered traitors to their states.
Ten-percent plan
reconstruction plan of Lincoln and Johnson; when 10 percent of the number of voters in 1860 took an oath of allegiance, renounced secession, and approved the Thirteenth Amendment, a southern state could form a government and elect congressional representatives. The plan involved no military occupation and provided no help for freedmen. It was rejected by Radical Republicans in December 1865.
Tenure of Office Act (1867)
Radical attempt to further diminish Andrew Johnson’s authority by providing that the president could not remove any civilian official without Senate approval; Johnson violated the law by removing Edwin Stanton as secretary of war, and the House of Representatives impeached him over his actions.
Thaddeus Stevens
uncompromising Radical Republican who wanted to revolutionize the South by giving equality to blacks; a leader in the impeachment of Andrew Johnson, he hoped for widespread land distribution to former slaves.
Thirteenth Amendment (1865)
abolished slavery everywhere in the United States.
Ulysses S. Grant
hard-fighting Union general whose relentless pursuit of Robert E. Lee finally brought the war to an end in April 1865; elected president in 1868, he presided over two disappointing and corrupt terms and is considered a failure as president.
Wade-Davis Bill (1864)
harsh Congressional Reconstruction bill that provided the president would appoint provisional governments for conquered states until a majority of voters took an oath of loyalty to the Union; it required the abolition of slavery by new state constitutions, the disenfranchisement of Confederate officials, and the repudiation of Confederate debt. Lincoln killed the bill with a pocket veto.
William Seward
Lincoln’s secretary of state and previously his chief rival for the Republican nomination in 1860; however, his comments about the Fugitive Slave Law and “irrepressible conflict” made him too controversial for the nomination. As secretary of state, he worked to buy Alaska from Russia.
Andrew Carnegie
Scottish-born industrialist who developed the U.S. steel industry; his is a rags-to-riches story as he made a fortune in business and sold his holdings in 1901 for $447 million. He spent the rest of his life giving away $350 million to worthy cultural and educational causes
Bloody Shirt
Republican campaign tactic that blamed the Democrats for the Civil War; it was used successfully in campaigns from 1868 to 1876 to keep Democrats out of public office, especially the presidency.
Coxey’s Army (1894)
unemployed workers led by Jacob Coxey who marched to Washington demanding a government road-building program and currency inflation for the needy; Coxey was arrested for stepping on grass at the Capitol and the movement collapsed.
Credit Mobilier
major scandal in Grant’s second term; a construction company, aided by members of Congress, bilked the government out of $20-40 million in building the transcontinental railroad. Members of Congress were bribed to cover up the overcharges.
Dawes General Allotment Act (1887)
abolished communal ownership on Indian reservations; each family head got 160 acres of reservation land; 80 acres for a single person; 40 acres for each dependent child. More than two-thirds of Indians’ remaining lands were lost due to this law.
Eugene V. Debs
Labor leader arrested during the Pullman Strike (1894); a convert to socialism, Debs ran for president five times between 1900 and 1920. In 1920, he campaigned from prison where he was being held for opposition to American involvement in World War I.
“Free silver”
political movement to inflate currency by government issuance of $16 of silver for every $1 of gold in circulation; it was supported by farmers, who sought to counter declining crop prices and increase the money supply. It became a symbol of liberating poor farmers from the grasp of wealthy easterners.
Grandfather clause”
laws in southern states that exempted voters from taking literacy tests or paying poll taxes if their grandfathers had voted as of January 1, 1867; it effectively gave white southerners the vote and disen-franchised African Americans.
Granger Movement (National Grange of the Patrons of Husbandry) (1867)
a farmers’ organization and movement that started as a social / educational association; the Grange later organized politically to pass a series of laws to regulate railroads in various states.
Grover Cleveland
only Democrat elected to presidency from 1856 to 1912; he served two nonconsecutive terms; elected in 1884, losing in 1888, and winning again in 1892. His second term was marred by the Depression of 1893.
Haymarket Riot (1886) –
violent incident at a workers’ rally held in Chicago’s Haymarket Square; political radicals and labor leaders called the rally to support a strike at the nearby McCormick Reaper works. When police tried to break it up, a bomb was thrown into their midst, killing 8 and wounding 67 others. The incident hurt the Knights of Labor and Governor John Altgeld, who pardoned some of the anarchist suspects.
Homestead Act (1862)
encouraged westward settlement by allowing heads of families to buy 160 acres of land for a small fee ($10-30); settlers were required to develop and remain on the land for five years. Over 400,000 families got land through this law.
James B. Weaver
former Civil War general who ran for president with the Greenback Party (1880) and the Populist Party (1892).
Jim Crow laws
series of laws passed in southern states in the 1880s and 1980s that segregated the races in many facets of life, including public conveyances, waiting areas, bathrooms, and theaters; it legalized segregation and was upheld as constitutional by Plessy v. Ferguson.
John D. Rockefeller
founder of Standard Oil Company; at one time his companies controlled 85-90 percent of refined oil in America. Standard Oil became the model for monopolizing an industry and creating a trust
Knights of Labor
labor union founded in 1869 and built by Terence V. Powderly; the Knights called for one big union, replacement of the wage system with producers’ cooperatives, and discouraged use of strikes. By 1886, they claimed membership of 700,000. Membership declined after the union’s association with the Haymarket Riot of 1886.
New immigration”
wave of immigration from the 1880s until the early twentieth century; millions came from southern and eastern Europe, who were poor, uneducated, Jewish, and Catholic. They settled in large cities and prompted a nativist backlash and, eventually, restrictions on immigration in the 1920s. These immigrants provided the labor force that allowed the rapid growth of American industry in the late 1800s and early 1900s
Pendleton Act (1883)
reform passed by Congress that restricted the spoils system; passed in part in reaction to assassination of President Garfield by a disappointed office seeker in 1881, it established the U.S. Civil Service Commission to administer a merit system for hiring in government jobs.
Plessy v. Ferguson (1896)
Supreme Court case about Jim Crow railroad cars in Louisiana; the Court decided by 7 to 1 that legislation could not overcome racial attitudes, and that it was constitutional to have “separate but equal” facilities for blacks and whites.
Populist Party (1892)
largely farmers’ party aiming to inflate currency and to promote government action against railroads and trusts; it also called for a graduated income tax and immigration restrictions. Its platform was never
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enacted in the 1890s, but it became the basis of some Progressive reforms in the
early twentieth century. It is also known as the Peoples Party.
Samuel Gompers
labor leader and president of American Federation of Labor, founded in 1886; Gompers believed that craft unionism would gain skilled workers better wages and working conditions. He emphasized support for capitalism and opposition to socialism.
Sherman Anti-Trust Act (1890)
first federal action against monopolies; the law gave government power to regulate combinations “in restraint of trade.” Until the early 1900s, however, this power was used more often against labor unions than against trusts.
Social Darwinism
the application of Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution to the business world; William Graham Sumner, a Yale professor, promoted these ideas and lobbied against any government regulation in society. Industrialists and social conservatives used these arguments to justify ruthless business tactics and widespread poverty among the working class.
Stalwarts
Republicans in the 1870s who supported Ulysses Grant and Roscoe Conkling; they accepted machine politics and the spoils system and were challenged by other Republicans called Half-Breeds, who supported civil service reform.
Transcontinental railroad
linked the nation from coast to coast in 1869; the Union Pacific Railroad built west from Omaha and the Central Pacific started east from Sacramento. The federal government supported construction with over $75 million in land grants, loans and cash.
Tweed Ring
scandal in New York City (1868-1871); William Marcy Tweed headed a corrupt Democratic political machine (Tammany Hall) that looted $100-200 million from the city. Crusading journalists and others pointed to this organization and its activities as another example of the need for social and political reform.
William Jennings Bryan
a spokesman for agrarian western values, 1896-1925, and three-time Democratic presidential candidate (1896, 1900, 1908); in 1896 his “Cross of Gold” speech and a free-silver platform gained support from Democrats and populists, but he lost the election.
William McKinley
Republican president, 1897-1901, who represented the conservative Eastern establishment; he stood for expansion, high tariffs, and the gold standard. He led the nation during the Spanish-American War (1898) and was assassinated in 1901 by a radical political anarchist.