The Adams-Onís Treaty. A treaty between the United States and Spain that ceded Florida to the United States and established the boundary between the United States and New Spain to the Pacific Ocean. The US also agreed to relinquish its claims on parts of Spanish Texas west of the Sabine River and other Spanish areas, under the terms of the Louisiana Purchase. It was signed on February 22, 1819 by John Quincy Adams, the American Secretary of State, and Luis de Onís, the Spanish minister to the United States.
The Alien and Sedition Acts. Legislation passed in 1798 that set a fierce political debate in the country. The Alien Act – formally known as the Naturalization Act of 1798 – made it more difficult for immigrants to become citizens, while the Sedition Act prohibited assembly “with intent to oppose any measure of the government” and made it illegal for any person to “print, utter, or publish any false, scandalous, or malicious writing” against the government.
The American Anti-Slavery Society. An organization formed under the leadership of William Lloyd Garrison in 1833 that was dedicated to the abolition of slavery. By 1840 it had 2000 auxiliary societies and 150,000 to 200,000 members. Members argued on both religious and “natural” grounds, through periodicals, pamphlets, and lecturers, that all individuals had the right to liberty. In 1839, the group split into two factions: one branch followed Garrison, denounced the Constitution, and joined ranks with women’s rights efforts. The other branch, led by Louis Tappan, formed the American and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society and advocated “moral suasion,” which honored the Constitution and did not insist on immediate change.
The American Federation of Labor. A confederation of more than one hundred different national and international trade unions formed by Samuel Gompers in 1886, who served as president until his death in 1924. The AFL represented only skilled craft workers and was dedicated to winning collective bargaining powers so that they could fight for better wages, shorter hours and safer working conditions its members. The first national labor organization to survive and experience a degree of success, largely because its conservative leadership accepted industrial capitalism, it’s membership by 1900 topped half a million.
The American System. A plan to strengthen and unify the nation, the American System was advanced by the Whig Party and a number of leading politicians including Henry Clay, John C. Calhoun and John Quincy Adams. The System included a high tariff to protect American industries and generate revenue for the federal government, the maintenance of high public land prices to generate federal revenue, preservation of the Bank of the United States to stabilize the currency and rein in risky state and local banks, and the development of a system of internal improvements (such as roads and canals) which would knit the nation together and be financed by the tariff and land sales revenues. Clay first used the term “American System” in 1824, although he had been working for its specifics for many years previously.
The Anti-Saloon League. An organization founded in 1895 that was dedicated to electing “drys” to Congress and lobbying on behalf of anti-liquor laws. They worked with churches in marshaling resources for the prohibition fight. The League’s main base of support was among Protestant churches in rural areas and the South. Allied with other temperance forces, especially the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union, the League in 1916 oversaw the election of the two-thirds majorities necessary in both houses of Congress to initiate what became the Eighteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States. Wayne Wheeler, chief administrator of the ASL, helped draft the Eighteenth Amendment and the Volstead Act (which created the machinery needed to enforce the 18th Amendment.)
Antitrust Laws. State and federal laws that regulate the conduct and organization of business corporations in order to promote competition for the benefit of consumers. Antitrust laws prohibit price-fixing, the operation of cartels, and other collusive practices that unreasonably restrain trade. They also restrict mergers and acquisitions of organizations that would likely substantially lessen competition and prohibit the abuse of monopoly power. The main federal statutes are the Sherman Act of 1890, the Clayton Act of 1914, and the Federal Trade Commission Act of 1914.
Appeal to the Coloured Citizens of the World. A radical anti-slavery document written by a free African American named David Walker. Published in September of 1829, it called upon slaves to revolt against their masters. Copies of the Appeal were discovered in Savannah, Georgia, within weeks of its publication. Within several months copies were found from Virginia to Louisiana. Walker revised his Appeal. He died in August of 1830, shortly after publishing the third edition.
Bacon’s Rebellion. A uprising in colonial Virginia led by Nathaniel Bacon, a local planter. In the summer and fall of 1676, Bacon and his supporters rose up and plundered the elite’s estates and slaughtered nearby Native Americans. Bacon and his followers challenged the economic and political privileges of the Governor William Berkeley’s circle of favorites. Bacon’s death and the arrival of a British fleet quelled this rebellion. Bacon’s Rebellion was the last gasp of the Virginia Indians; depopulated and demoralized, they were no longer able to prevent white incursions onto their land. The rebellion also led the crown to assert greater control over Virginia, which in turn, united the planter elite in defense of local autonomy. The rebellion proved to be a turning point in the history of colonial Virginia because it accelerated the shift from indentured servitude to slave labor.
The Bank War. The political struggle that developed over the issue of rechartering the Second Bank of the United States during the Andrew Jackson administration. The central issue in the presidential election campaign of 1832, the bank war mobilized the Jacksonian Democrats, who opposed rechartering the bank, and the National Republicans, led by Henry Clay of Kentucky, who supported recharter. Jackson and Nicholas Biddle, the President of the Bank of the United States, came to personify the positions on each side.
The Battle of Antietam. A Civil War battle that took place in Sharpsburg, Maryland on September 17, 1862. Following the Union victory President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation.
The Battle of Saratoga. A Revolutionary War battle that took place in upstate New York in the Fall of 1777. It proved to be the first major American victory over a regular British army during the war. The American victory turned a colonial rebellion into international war by convincing the French to enter the war on the side of the Americans
The Bessemer Process. The first process for mass-producing steel inexpensively. It was developed by Henry Bessemer in the early 1850’s. Used in the construction of rails, ships, bridges, skyscrapers, and much more, low-cost steel would help transform the U.S. into the world’s premier industrial power.
The Berlin Airlift. A massive airlift of food, water, and medicine to the citizens of the besieged city of West Berlin undertaken by the United States after the Soviet Union blockade of land routes into the city. The first planes took off from bases in England and western Germany on June 26, 1948 and landed in West Berlin. American planes landed around the clock. Over 200,000 planes carried in more than one-and-a-half million tons of supplies. For nearly a year, supplies from American planes sustained the over 2 million people The Soviets lifted the blockade in May 1949.
The Bill of Rights. The collective name for the first ten amendments to the United States Constitution, these amendments guarantee a number of personal freedoms, limit the government’s power in judicial and other proceedings, and reserve some powers to the states and the public. While originally the amendments applied only to the federal government, most of their provisions have since been applied to the states by way of the Fourteenth Amendment, a process known as incorporation.
The Birth of a Nation. A 1915 film directed by D. W. Griffith ’s that tells the story of the intertwined fates of a southern and northern family before and after the Civil War. It openly depicts southern blacks as vicious and lascivious, their northern white allies as cunning, unscrupulous, and arrogant, and the film’s southern whites as suffering repeated political and sexual indignities at the hands of white northerners and black southerners before literally being rescued by the gallant, hooded riders of the Ku Klux Klan. After seeing a special screening at the White House, President Woodrow Wilson remarked: “It is like writing history with lightning, and my only regret is that it is all so terribly true.” African-American audiences openly wept at the film’s malicious portrayal of blacks, while Northern white audiences cheered. Shortly after seeing the film, “Colonel” William Joseph Simmons revived the Klan. By the mid-1920s this second version of the Klan claimed to have five million members nationwide.
Black Codes. Laws passed by southern state legislatures during Reconstruction that were designed to severely limit the freedom of African Americans and ensure their availability as a labor force after slavery had been abolished. For instance, many states required blacks to sign yearly labor contracts; if they refused, they risked being arrested as vagrants and fined or forced into unpaid labor. Northern outrage over the black codes helped undermine support for Johnson’s policies, and by late 1866 control over Reconstruction had shifted to the more radical wing of the Republican Party in Congress.
The Bonus Army. A group of approximately 15,000 to 20,000 World War I veterans from across the country who marched on the Capitol in June 1932 to request early payment of cash bonuses due to them in 1945. Upon arriving in Washington, the marchers set up camps in and around the city while Congress considered their proposals. Fearing riots, President Herbert Hoover ordered the army to remove the marchers from their encampments. On July 28, 1932 cavalry, infantry, tank troops and a mounted machine gun squadron commanded by General Douglas MacArthur dispersed veterans and their families with bayonets and tear gas. Most of the public blamed Hoover for the resulting bloodshed and helped force him from office in the presidential election that Fall.
Brown v. Board of Education. A Supreme Court decision that said that “separate educational facilities are inherently unequal” and that segregation laws violated the Equal Protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. It overturned the Plessy v. Ferguson decision of 1896, which had allowed state-sponsored segregation and the creation of separate public schools for black and white students. The Brown ruling paved the way for integration and was a major victory of the Civil Rights movement. The unanimous ruling was handed down on May 17, 1954.
The Chinese Exclusion Act. A federal law passed by Congress in 1882 and signed by President Chester A. Arthur that provided an absolute ten year moratorium on Chinese labor immigration. It was enacted in response to economic fears, especially on the West Coast, where native-born Americans attributed unemployment and declining wages to Chinese workers whom they also viewed as racially inferior. For the first time, Federal law proscribed entry of an ethnic group on the premise that it endangered the good order of certain localities. It was also the first significant restriction on free immigration in U.S. history.
The Civil Rights Act of 1964. A federal law signed by President Lyndon Johnson on July 2, 1964 that prohibited discrimination in the workplace, public accommodations, public facilities, and agencies receiving federal funds, and strengthened prohibitions on school segregation and discrimination in voter registration. One of the most far-reaching civil-rights measure ever passed by Congress, its impact was felt in the workplace, in schools, in restaurants, in hotels, and every other public space imaginable.
Committees of Correspondence: Organizations established by American colonists in the years leading up to the American Revolution. The first was created at the request of Samuel Adams, who, at a Boston town meeting on November 2, 1772, secured the appointment of a 21-man “committee of correspondence…to state the rights of the Colonists and of this Province in particular, as men, as Christians, and as subjects; and to communicate and publish the same to the several Towns in the Province and to the World.” By the end of 1773, ten of the colonies had Committees of Correspondence. The committees promoted patriotism and home manufacturing, advising Americans to avoid luxuries, and lead a more simple life. The committees gradually extended their power over many aspects of American public life. They set up espionage networks to identify disloyal elements, displaced the royal officials, and helped topple the entire Imperial system in each colony. In late 1774 and early 1775, they supervised the elections of provincial conventions, which took over the actual operation of colonial government, superseding the colonial legislature and royal officials. The Maryland Committee of Correspondence was instrumental in setting up the First Continental Congress, a majority of whose delegates were committee members. A total of about 7,000 to 8,000 Patriots served on these committees at the colonial and local levels, comprising most of the leadership in their communities—the Loyalists were excluded.
Common Sense. A forty-seven page pamphlet written in January of 1776 by Thomas Paine that condemned monarchy and urged Americans to declare their independence from Great Britain and set up a republican form of government. About half a million copies were sold and distributed widely and read aloud at taverns and meeting places in all thirteen colonies. Its incendiary language and simple format made it popular with ordinary colonists, many of whom became radicalized and began calling for independence.
The Compromise of 1850. A legislative compromise drafted by Senators Henry Clay of Kentucky and Stephen Douglas of Illinois and signed into law by President Millard Fillmore in the Summer of 1850. The compromise package between northern and southern lawmakers included the admission of California as a free state, a guarantee that no federal restrictions would be placed on slavery in Utah or New Mexico, an adjustment of the Texas-New Mexico border coupled with monetary compensation to Texas for the loss of territory, the abolition of the slave trade in the District of Columbia (while slavery itself was allowed to continue), and a new, more rigorous fugitive slave law that required northerners to return runaway slaves to their owners under penalty of law.
Containment. The strategic foreign policy pursued by the United States throughout the Cold War that was intended to check Soviet expansion into areas deemed to be of vital importance to the west. The idea was articulated in 1946 by U.S. Foreign Service officer, George F. Kennan in the now-famous “long telegram” sent from his post in Moscow to the State Department in Washington, D.C. In it Kennan argued that the Soviet Union was USSR was inherently expansionist and aggressively anti-democratic and anti-capitalist and that its leader, Joseph Stalin was a fanatic who only responded to force. Containment provided a conceptual framework for a series of successful initiatives undertaken from 1947 to 1950 to blunt Soviet expansion. It prolonged the Cold War, led to massive military spending and US military involvement around the world.
The Corrupt Bargain. An alleged deal struck between Henry Clay and John Quincy Adams after the contested presidential election of 1824. Political opponents of the two men claimed that Clay had used his influence as Speaker of the House of Representatives to make John Quincy Adams president in exchange for the job of Secretary of State. This allegedly took place in Washington, City in February 1825. While never proven to be true, the allegation of corruption launched a four-year campaign of revenge by the friends of his chief rival, Andrew Jackson of Tennessee. These so-called “Jacksonians” attacked the Adams administration at every turn as illegitimate and tainted by aristocracy and corruption. They also launched a four-year campaign to elect Andrew Jackson president in 1828.
The Cotton Gin. A machine used to extract the sticky seeds from short staple cotton. The cotton gin made cotton cultivation cost effective and highly profitable, triggering a cotton boom in the southern United States that led to an increased demand for slaves. The device was patented by it’s inventor, Eli Whitney, on October 28, 1793.
Court Packing. President Franklin Roosevelt’s controversial plan to expand the Supreme Court to as many as 15 judges. On February 5, 1937, Roosevelt sent the Judicial Reform bill to Congress claiming a desire to help the “aged or infirm judges” who were working the overcrowded federal court dockets. Critics charged that Roosevelt was trying to “pack” the court and thus neutralize Supreme Court justices hostile to his New Deal. Its chief sponsor in the Senate, Democrat Joseph Robinson of Arkansas, died during its consideration, and the bill died with him.
Coxey’s Army. A group of unemployed who marched to Washington, D.C., in the depression year of 1894. It was the only one of several groups that had set out for the U.S. capital to actually reach its destination. Led by Jacob S. Coxey, a businessman, it left Massillon, Ohio, on March 25, 1894, with about 100 men and arrived in Washington on May 1 with about 500. Coxey hoped to persuade Congress to authorize a vast program of public works, financed by a substantial increase of the money in circulation, to provide jobs for the unemployed, but, despite the publicity his group received, it had no impact on public policy. The venture came to an ignominious end when Coxey and some of his followers were arrested for trespassing on the lawns at the Capitol.
The Crime Against Kansas. A speech delivered on the floor of the US Senate on May 19-20, 1856 by Senator Charles Sumner of Massachusetts in which he used unusually offensive language to denounce slavery, the South and Senator Andrew Butler of South Carolina. The speech prompted Representative Preston Brooks of South Carolina to beat Sumner senseless on the floor of the United States Senate. The attack on Sumner outraged northerners who saw it as the South turning the violence they used upon slaves upon an innocent politician, leading many to join Republican Party, which they saw as a bulwark to the growing “slave power.”
Cross of Gold Speech. A speech delivered by William Jennings Bryan at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago. Bryan, a thirty-six-year-old former Congressman from Nebraska who aspired to be the Democratic nominee for president, gave this dramatic speech on July 9, 1896. His speaking style and rhetoric roused the crowd to a frenzy. The next day the convention nominated Bryan for President on the fifth ballot.
The Cult of Domesticity. A set of beliefs about gender roles held by middle and upper-class Americans in mid 19th-century America. The men and women who ascribed to this set of values believed that women were supposed to embody perfect virtue in all senses and were expected to fulfill the roles of a calm and nurturing mother, a loving and faithful wife, and a passive, delicate, and virtuous domestic guardians. Women were expected to be pious and religious, and uncorrupted by the world of business and politics, the sphere reserved for men. These ideals and virtues were elaborated on and stressed on by ministers in sermons, and physicians in popular health books.
D-Day. Name given to the June 6, 1944 allied invasion of Nazi-occupied France. On that day, 160,000 Allied troops, commanded by General Dwight D. Eisenhower, landed along a 50-mile stretch of heavily-fortified French coastline to fight Nazi Germany on the beaches of Normandy, France. More than 5,000 Ships and 13,000 aircraft supported the D-Day invasion, and by day’s end on June 6, the Allies gained a foot- hold in Normandy. The D-Day cost was high -more than 9,000 Allied Soldiers were killed or wounded – but more than 100,000 Soldiers began the march across Europe to defeat Hitler.
The Dred Scott Decision. A Supreme Court ruling handed down on March 6, 1857 by Chief Justice Roger Taney that declared that slaves were not citizens of the United States and could not sue in Federal courts. Ii also declared that the Missouri Compromise was unconstitutional and that Congress did not have the authority to prohibit slavery in the territories. The ruling widened the gap between North and South, made it harder to compromise on the issue of slavery, and weakened the moral authority of the judiciary.
The Emancipation Proclamation. A presidential proclamation and executive order issued by Abraham Lincoln on September 22, 1862 that freed all of the slaves in areas under Confederate control. Although it did not completely abolish slavery, it did transform the Civil War from a war to save the union into a war to free the slaves. It went into effect on January 1, 1863.
The Embargo Act of 1807. A law passed by Congress and signed by President Thomas Jefferson on December 22, 1807 that closed all American ports to foreign trade, allowing only coastal trade. It was later tightened to prohibit exports by land.
The Emergency Banking Relief Act. The first significant act passed by Congress during the New Deal. Signed into law by President Franklin D. Roosevelt on March 9, 1933, it individual banks to reopen “as soon as examiners found them to be financially secure.” In addition to examining the health of banks, it expanded presidential authority to deal with a banking crisis, gave the Comptroller of the Currency power to take over troubled banks, allowed the Secretary of the Treasury to shore up bank finances when needed, and gave the Federal Reserve the flexibility to issue emergency currency.
The Enlightenment. A period in the history of western thought and culture, stretching roughly from the mid-decades of the seventeenth century through the eighteenth century, characterized by dramatic revolutions in science, philosophy, society and politics; these revolutions swept away the medieval world-view and ushered in our modern western world. Enlightenment thought culminates historically in the political upheaval of the French Revolution, in which the traditional hierarchical political and social orders (the French monarchy, the privileges of the French nobility, the political power and authority of the Catholic Church) were violently destroyed and replaced by a political and social order informed by the Enlightenment ideals of freedom and equality for all, founded, ostensibly, upon principles of human reason.
The Era of Good Feelings. The phase used describe the years immediately following the War of 1812. A period marked by strong nationalism and one-party rule, it coincided with the Presidency of James Monroe (1817-1825).
Executive Order 8802. An executive order issued by President Franklin Roosevelt on June 25, 1941 that prohibited discrimination in the defense industry and created the Fair Employment Practices Committee to monitor hiring practices. It was the first federal action, though not a law, to promote equal opportunity and prohibit employment discrimination in the United States.
Executive Order 9066. An executive order issued by President Franklin Roosevelt on 19 February 1942 authorized the internment of tens of thousands of American citizens of Japanese ancestry and resident aliens from Japan. Roosevelt gave the military broad powers to ban any citizen from a fifty- to sixty-mile-wide coastal area stretching from Washington state to California and extending inland into southern Arizona. He also authorized transporting these citizens to internment camps run by the military in California, Arizona, Washington state, and Oregon. As a result, more than one hundred thousand men, women, and children were forcible held in what amounted to minimum security prisons for the duration of World War II.
The Federalists Papers. Eighty-five newspaper essays written by Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay that explain and clarify the principles and provisions of the Constitution of 1787. First published in the New York press under the signature of “Publius,” they appeared in book form in 1788. Originally intended to be influential in the campaign for the adoption of the Constitution by New York State, they are now considered to be one of the most important contributions to political thought made in America, in part because the authors not only discussed the issues of the constitution, but also the general problems of politics and governance.
Fireside Chats. Weekly radio addresses by President Franklin Roosevelt in which he explained his actions to the American people. Roosevelt used radio to address the concerns of the American people as well as to inform them of the positions and actions taken by his administration.
Flappers. Young women in the 1920s who adopted an original style of dress and challenged traditional social values. Flappers wore short skirts, bobbed their hair, listened to jazz, and flaunted their disdain for what was then considered acceptable behavior. Traditionalists saw them as brash for wearing excessive makeup, drinking, treating sex in a casual manner, smoking, driving automobiles, and otherwise flouting social and sexual norms.
The Free Soil Party. A political party that campaigned against the expansion of slavery into the territory acquired from Mexico. It was formed in 1848 by supporters of the failed 1846 Wilmot proviso and included members of the Whig Party, the Liberty Party, and anti-slavery “Barnburner” Democrats of New York state. Founded on the ideals of “free soil, free speech, free labor, and free men,” the party selected former president Martin Van Buren of New York as its presidential nominee in 1848 and John Parker Hale of New Hampshire in 1852. While no Free Soiler ever ascended to the presidency, several members won seats in the House and Senate. In 1854 Free Soilers joined with other opponents of the Kansas-Nebraska Act to form the Republican Party.
The Gag Rule. A parliamentary rule passed at the beginning of every session of the House of Representatives between 1836 and 1844 that automatically “tabled,” or postponed action on all petitions relating to slavery without hearing them. Lawmakers adopted the gag rule to avoid debating thousands of anti-slavery petitions being sent to northern congressmen from abolitionists groups. Southerners and northerners were prepared to avoid the topic, either out of a belief that Congress lacked the authority to abolish slavery or simply in the interest of political harmony. The House was required to renew the rule at the start of each session.
The Genet Affair. In April 1793, “Citizen” Edmond Charles Genet (1763-1834), a French minister, arrived in the United States and passed out letters authorizing Americans to attack British commercial vessels and Spanish New Orleans. President George Washington regarded these actions as a violation of American neutrality and demanded that France recall its minister. The Genet affair it intensified party feeling. Democratic-Republicans, who supported the French Revolution, celebrated Genet, while the Federalists saw him as a trouble-maker here to stir up grass-roots opposition to the Washington administration.
The GI Bill. The popular name for the Servicemen’s Readjustment Act of 1944, it was a government program created to provide veterans with low-interest mortgages, loans to start businesses and/or money for college tuition. Largely written and proposed as an omnibus bill by Warren Atherton, it is often considered the last piece of Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal legislation. The fact that it paid for a G.I.’s entire education helped revolutionize higher education in America as colleges and universities across the country to expanded their enrollment. It also helped redistribute wealth in American from the wealthiest Americans to those most in need.
The Glass-Steagall Act. The common name for the Banking Act passed on June 16, 1933 that was designed “to provide for the safer and more effective use of the assets of banks, to regulate interbank control, to prevent the undue diversion of funds into speculative operations, and for other purposes” by separating commercial and investment banking and barring banks from dealing in stocks and bonds. Named for Senator Carter Glass (D-VA) and Representative Henry Steagall (D-AL), the bill also established the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, which created a system for insuring deposits.
The Great Awakening. A revitalization of religious piety that swept through the American colonies between the 1730s and the 1770s. This “Age of Faith” rose, in part, to the currents of the “Age of Enlightenment,” and spread throughout all thirteen colonies, beginning in New Jersey and eastern Pennsylvania, then into New England and the Southern colonies. It was led by “New Light Ministers,” — Jonathan Edwards, George Whitefield, William and Gilbert Tennent, Theodore Frelinghuysen, and Samuel Davies — who criticized commercial society, preached a more emotional and personal style of Christianity, and affirmed that being truly religious meant trusting the heart rather than the head, prizing feeling more than thinking, and relying on biblical revelation rather than human reason. The Great Awakening was the first major event that all the colonies shared, it helped break down differences between them and led ordinary colonists to question some forms of authority.
The Great Society. A set of domestic programs introduced by President Lyndon Johnson that were aimed at eliminating poverty and racial injustice in the United States. To that end, Congress passed laws that advanced civil rights, funded education and the arts, provided healthcare for the poor and the elderly, protected the environment, reformed immigration, provided aid to the poor, and protected consumers. President Johnson first used the term “Great Society” while campaigning for reelection in 1964.
The Gulf of Tonkin Resolution. A joint resolution passed by Congress on August 7, 1964 authorizing President Lyndon Johnson to “take all necessary measures to repel any armed attack against the forces of the United States and to prevent further aggression” by the communist government of North Vietnam. The Johnson administration used it to begin its rapid escalation of U.S. military involvement in South Vietnam and open warfare between North Vietnam and the United States, effectively launching America’s full-scale involvement in the Vietnam War.
The Hart-Celler Act. Common name for the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965, it abolished the national origins quota system that had structured American immigration policy since the 1920s, replacing it with a preference system that focused on immigrants’ skills and family relationships with citizens or residents of the United States. Numerical restrictions on visas were set at 170,000 per year, not including immediate relatives of U.S. citizens, nor “special immigrants” – including those born in “independent” nations in the Western hemisphere; former citizens; ministers; employees of the U.S. government abroad.
The Hartford Convention. A gathering of Federalist lawmakers representing five New England states held in Hartford, Connecticut in December of 1814. The delegates proposed a series of constitutional amendments that were designed to restrict the powers of the federal government and the South. These proposals became public knowledge at the same time as the terms of the Treaty of Ghent and the American victory in the Battle of New Orleans. Euphoria over the war’s end led many to brand the Federalists as traitors. The party never recovered from this stigma and ceased to be a significant force in national politics.
The Homestead Strike. A violent labor strike by the Amalgamated Association of Iron and Steel Workers that took place at the Carnegie Steel Company in Homestead, Pennsylvania. On July 6, 1892, an all-day battle between strikers and Pinkerton guards hired by plant manager Henry Clay Frick resulted in the deaths nine strikers and seven Pinkerton men. On July 12, Pennsylvania Governor William Stone sent eight thousand militia, which allowed strikebreakers to get the plant running again. An attack on Frick by anarchist Alexander Berkman cost the strikers a public support. The strike lost momentum and ended on November 20, 1892. With the Amalgamated Association virtually destroyed, Carnegie Steel moved quickly to institute longer hours and lower wages. The Homestead strike inspired many workers, but it also underscored how difficult it was for any union to prevail against the combined power of the corporation and the government.
The House of Burgesses. The first representative assembly in British North America. Established in Jamestown, Virginia in April of 1619 by newly arrived Governor George Yeardley, it marked the start of a strong tradition of representative government in colonies. The first assembly met on July 30, 1619, in the church at Jamestown. The first meeting included the governor, his council and twenty-two “burgesses” (elected representatives) representing 11 plantations (or settlements). Only white men who owned a specific amount of property were eligible to vote for Burgesses.
The Influence of Sea Power Upon History. An influential book written by Alfred Thayer Mahan in 1890 in which he made the case for a strong American navy and the acquisition of island outposts to protect and service the country’s shipping.
The Iran-Contra Affair. A political scandal involving high-ranking members of the Reagan administration that became public in November 1986. It involved the illegal sale of arms to Iran in exchange for the release of several hostages. The money used from the sale of the arms was then used to illegally fund the Nicaraguan Contras, an anti-communist group attempting to overthrow the Sandinista regime.
The Jay Treaty. A 1795 treaty that increased trade and averted war between Great Britain and the United States. Signed on November 19, 1794 by representatives of the United States, led by Chief Justice John Jay, and and representaives of the British government, it was intended to settle outstanding issues between the two countries that had been left unresolved since American independence. In fact, the treaty addressed few U.S. interests, and ultimately granted Britain additional rights.The only concessions Jay obtained was a surrender of the northwestern posts (already agreed to in 1783) and a commercial treaty with Great Britain that granted the United States “most favored nation” status, but seriously restricted U.S. commercial access to the British West Indies. All other outstanding issues, including the Canadian-Maine boundary, compensation for pre-revolutionary debts, and British seizures of American ships, were to be resolved by arbitration. Jay even conceded that the British could seize U.S. goods bound for France if they paid for them and could confiscate without payment French goods on American ships. Jay’s Treaty was immensely unpopular with the American public, but it squeaked through the Senate on a 20 to 10 vote on June 24, 1795. The debate over the treaty led to the emergence of the first political parties in the United States
Jim Crow Laws. State and local laws enacted between 1876 and 1965 that mandated legal racial segregation in all public facilities in southern states.
The Johnson-Reed Act. The common name for the Immigration Act of 1924 that limited the number of immigrants allowed entry into the United States through a national origins quota. The quota provided immigration visas to two percent of the total number of people of each nationality in the United States as of the 1890 national census. The law was primarily aimed at further restricting immigration of Southern Europeans and Eastern Europeans. In addition, it severely restricted the immigration of Africans and outright banned the immigration of Arabs and Asians. The most basic purpose of the 1924 Immigration Act was to preserve the ideal of U.S. homogeneity. The bill was named for its chief sponsors, Congressman Albert Johnson of Washington state and Senator David Reed of Pennsylvania.
The Jungle. A novel written by Upton Sinclair and published in 1906, While the book is best known for revealing the unsanitary process by which animals became meat products, Sinclair’s primary concern was the horrifying physical conditions under which immigrant packing plant workers and their families worked and lived. The socialist Sinclair portrayed the collapse of immigrant culture under the relentless pressure of industrial capitalism. After reading the novel, President Theodore Roosevelt ordered an immediate investigation into the meat industry. Within months, two pieces of legislation resulted from Sinclair’s novel: The Pure Food and Drug Act and the Meat Inspection Act, both signed into law on June 30th, 1906. Despite winning instant celebrity and financial stability, Sinclair lamented the fact that the nation focused only on the unsafe food handling aspect of his novel, and ignored the problem of labor exploitation. He famously quipped: “I aimed at the public’s heart and by accident I hit it in the stomach.”
The Kansas-Nebraska Act. An act managed in Congress by Senator Steven Douglas of Illinois that organized the territories of Nebraska and Kansas. The act, which was signed into law by President Franklin Pierce on May 30, 1854, applied the doctrine of popular sovereignty to the two territories, thereby undoing the Missouri Compromise, which had prohibited slavery in those territories. Passage of the bill reignited the debate between pro and anti slavery factions, which irrevocably split the Whig Party along sectional lines. Northern Whigs would unite with Free Soilers to form the Republican Party. The Kansas-Nebraska Act may have been the single most significant event leading to the Civil War.
The Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions. Political statements drafted in 1798 and 1799, in which the Kentucky and Virginia legislatures took the position that the federal Alien and Sedition Acts were unconstitutional and that the states had the right and the duty to declare unconstitutional (or nullify) acts of Congress that were not authorized by the Constitution. Written secretly by Vice President Thomas Jefferson and James Madison, respectively, they argue for states’ rights and strict construction of the Constitution.
King Philip’s War. A war fought between English settlers and Native Americans in New England in 1675-1676. Also known as Metacom’s Rebellion, it marked the last major effort by the Indians of southern New England to drive out the English settlers. Led by Metacom, the Pokunoket chief called ‘King Philip’ by the English, the bands known today as Wampanoag Indians joined with the Nipmucks, Pocumtucks, and Narragansetts in a bloody uprising. It lasted fourteen months and destroyed twelve frontier towns. The war ended in August 1676, shortly after Metacom was captured and beheaded. Some of his supporters escaped to Canada; those who surrendered were shipped off as slaves to the West Indies. The Puritans interpreted their victory as a sign of God’s favor, as well as a symbolic purge of their spiritual community. The Indians who remained faced servitude, disease, cultural disruption, and the expropriation of their lands.
The Knights of Labor. An American labor union established in 1869. Members fought for the eight-hour day, abolition of child labor, equal pay for equal work, and political reforms including the graduated income tax.
Laissez-faire. The economic doctrine opposing governmental interference in economic affairs beyond the minimum necessary for the maintenance of peace and property rights.
Letter from Birmingham City Jail. An open letter written on April 16, 1963, by Martin Luther King, Jr. that defended nonviolent resistance to racism, arguing that people have a moral responsibility to break unjust laws.
The Liberator. The first abolitionist newspaper to call for an immediate end to slavery. It was published between 1831 and 1865 out of Boston, Massachusetts by William Lloyd Garrison. Throughout its existence it had a relatively small readership: most subscribers lived the North; three quarters of them were free African Americans. Nevertheless, it marked the beginning of a variety of antislavery that was new in tone, social composition, and doctrine. Garrison gained a national reputation as one of the most radical of abolitionists in the nation. His Liberator condemned the Compromise of 1850, the Kansas-Nebraska Act, and the Dred Scott decision, and hailed John Brown’s raid of the federal armory in Harper’s Ferry, Virginia.
The Liberty Party. An abolitionist party formed in 1840. It selected James G. Birney of Kentucky as it’s presidential nominee in 1840 and 1844. Their primary goal was to elect people to political offices who would outlaw slavery. In 1848 many former members joined the Free-Soil Party.
Loose Construction (of the Constitution). The belief that the Constitution is a dynamic, living document that must change as the nation develops. Loose constructionists do not feel bound by the original intent of the Founding Fathers. They argue that the Founders were practical, pragmatic leaders who did not cast doctrine in concrete. They believe that the federal government can exercise powers that are not expressly forbidden by the US Constitution. Advocates of “loose construction” believe Article I, Section 8, Clause 18 of the Constitution (known as the “elastic clause” or the “necessary and proper clause”) grants to Congress “implied powers” to enact laws to carry out the “enumerated powers” that are specifically assigned to the federal government. See also “Strict Construction”
The Louisiana Purchase. The 1803 land deal between the United States and France, in which the U.S. acquired approximately 827,000 square miles of land west of the Mississippi River for $15 million. It doubled the size of the United States and gave the United States complete control of the Mississippi River.
Macon’s Bill Number 2. A federal law that lifted all embargoes with Britain and France for three months. It stated that if either one of the two countries ceased attacks upon American shipping, the United States would end trade with the other, unless that other country agreed to recognize the rights of the neutral American ships as well. The law, which went into effect on May 14, 1810, replaced the ineffective Non-Intercourse Act of 1809. It was intended to motivate Great Britain and France to stop seizing American vessels during the Napoleonic Wars. This bill was a revision of the original bill by Representative Nathaniel Macon of North Carolina, known as Macon’s Bill Number 1. Macon neither wrote it nor approved it. Macon did not vote in favor of the finished draft of the bill.
The Manhattan Project. A research and development project that produced the first atomic bombs during World War II. It was led by the United States with the support of the United Kingdom and Canada. From 1942 to 1946, the project was under the direction of Major General Leslie Groves of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. The main assembly plant was built at Los Alamos, New Mexico. Robert Oppenheimer was put in charge of putting the pieces together at Los Alamos. The project cost about $2 billion and employed 120,000 Americans.
Manifest Destiny. The widely-held belief that the United States was divinely ordained to spread its possessions and institutions across the continent. The phrase was coined by John L. O’Sullivan, editor of The United States Magazine & Democratic Review, July-August edition, 1845.
Marbury v. Madison. The 1803 Supreme Court ruling that established the doctrine of judicial review – the power of federal courts to void acts of Congress in conflict with the Constitution. Written by Chief Justice John Marshall, the decision played a key role in making the Supreme Court a separate branch of government on par with Congress and the executive.
Market Revolution. The phrase used to describe America’s transition from a nation of isolated self-sufficient farmers to a nation of consumers, manufacturers, factor workers, and traders, all taking part in national and international markets thanks to canals, rails, telegraph, and machines.
The Marshall Plan. Also known as the European Recovery Program, was a US government program that channeled over $13 billion to finance the economic recovery of Europe between 1948 and 1951. The Marshall Plan successfully sparked economic recovery, meeting its objective of ‘restoring the confidence of the European people in the economic future of their own countries and of Europe as a whole. The plan is named for Secretary of State George C. Marshall, who announced it in a commencement speech at Harvard University on June 5, 1947.
McCarthyism. A term used during the Second Red Scare of the 1940s and 1950’s to describe the intense, often paranoid hunt for “communist subversives” living and working in the United States. Originally coined to criticize the anticommunist pursuits of Republican U.S. Senator Joseph McCarthy of Wisconsin, “McCarthyism” soon took on a broader meaning, describing the excesses of similar efforts. During the McCarthy era, the House Un-American Activities Committee investigated government employees in Washington, film makers in Hollywood, and educators and union activists throughout the country. These witch hunts caused many people to lose their jobs and reputations, and, by equating dissent with disloyalty, drastically narrowed the spectrum of acceptable political debate in the United States.
McCulloch v. Maryland. The 1819 Supreme Court ruling in which a unanimous Court held that Congress had the power to incorporate the Second National Bank under the “elastic clause” of the Constitution, which granted Congress the authority to “make all laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into execution” the work of the Federal Government. The case established two important principles in constitutional law. First, the Constitution grants to Congress implied powers for implementing the Constitution’s express powers. Second, state action may not impede valid constitutional exercises of power by the Federal government.
The Missouri Compromise. A federal statute managed in Congress by Henry Clay that admitted Missouri as a slave state, Maine as a free state, and prohibited slavery in the Louisiana Territory north of the 36° 30´ latitude line (except within the boundaries of the proposed state of Missouri). The compromise was agreed to by both the pro-slavery and anti-slavery factions in the United States Congress and passed as a law in 1820, under the presidency of James Monroe. It was repealed by the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854 and declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court in the Dred Scott decision in 1857.
A Modell of Christian Charity. A sermon delivered by John Winthrop onboard the Arabella in 1630 in which he laid out the Puritan mission to build a “City upon a Hill” in America. Winthrop’s sermon reminded the Puritans of the importance of maintaining adherence to Biblical precepts and working together as a community.
The Montgomery Bus Boycott. A protest in which African Americans refused to ride city buses in Montgomery, Alabama, to protest segregated seating. Sparked by the arrest of Rosa Parks on 1 December 1955, it began on December 5, 1955 and ended on December 20, 1956. It is regarded as the first large-scale demonstration against segregation in the U.S. The U.S. Supreme Court ultimately ordered Montgomery to integrate its bus system, and one of the leaders of the boycott, a young pastor named Martin Luther King Jr., emerged as a prominent national leader of the American civil rights movement in the wake of the action.
Mugwumps. Republicans who supported Democratic presidential candidate Grover Cleveland in 1884 because they viewed their own party’s candidate, James G. Blaine, as corrupt. Many historians believe the Mugwumps swung the election to Cleveland by helping him win in New York and its 36 electoral votes. After the election, the term came to mean someone who is independent or who remains undecided or neutral in politics. It also came to mean a politician who either could not or would not make up his mind on some important issue, or who refused to take a stand when he was expected to do so. Hence the old joke that a mugwump is a person sitting on the fence, with his mug on one side and his wump on the other.
National Labor Relations Act of 1935. A federal law that guaranteed the right of employees to organize, form unions, and bargain collectively with their employers. Commonly known as the Wagner Act after Senator Robert R. Wagner of New York, it was signed into law by President Franklin Roosevelt on July 5, 1935. It established the National Labor Relations Board and addressed relations between unions and employers in the private sector. The act contributed to a dramatic surge in union membership and made labor a force to be reckoned with both politically and economically.
National Security Act of 1947. A law that mandated a major reorganization of the foreign policy and military establishments of the U.S. Government. The act created many of the institutions that Presidents found useful when formulating and implementing foreign policy, including the National Security Council (NSC), which the included the President, Vice President, Secretary of State, Secretary of Defense, and other members (such as the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency), who met at the White House to discuss both long-term problems and more immediate national security crises. The act also established the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), which served as the primary civilian intelligence-gathering organization in the government, and made changes in the military establishment by merging the War and Navy Departments into a single Department of Defense under the Secretary of Defense, who also directed the newly created Department of the Air Force. The act placed our peacetime military establishment on a permanent wartime footing.
Nat Turner’s Rebellion. A slave uprising that took place in Southampton County, Virginia in 1831. Named for the slave who led the rebellion, the rebels stabbed, shot and clubbed at least 55 white people to death before they themselves were killed or captured. Nat Turner was tried, found guilty, hanged, and then skinned. In all, the state executed 55 people, banished many more, and acquitted a few. The state reimbursed the slaveholders for their slaves. But in the hysterical climate that followed the rebellion, close to 200 black people, many of whom had nothing to do with the rebellion, were murdered by white mobs. In addition, slaves as far away as North Carolina were accused of having a connection with the insurrection, and were subsequently tried and executed.
The Non-Intercourse Act of 1809. An act that lifted all embargoes on American shipping except for those bound for British or French ports. Its intent was to damage the economies of the United Kingdom and France. Like its predecessor, the Embargo Act of 1807, it was mostly ineffective and seriously damaged the economy of the United States.
The Northwest Ordinance. An ordinance passed by the Second Continental Congress on July 13, 1787 that established a government for the Northwest Territory (the area north of the Ohio River and east of the Mississippi River), outlined the process for admitting new states to the Union, and guaranteed that newly created states would be equal to the original thirteen states. Considered one of the most important legislative acts of the Confederation Congress, it also protected civil liberties and outlawed slavery in the new territories.
The Nullification Crisis. A political crisis that began on November 24, 1832 when a state convention in South Carolina declared the Tariffs of 1828 and 1832 unconstitutional and unenforceable in South Carolina and threatened to secede if the federal government attempted to collect the tariff duties.
The Ostend Manifesto. A dispatch in October 1854 drafted by American ministers James Buchanan, John Y. Mason, and Pierre Soulé, meeting in Belgium, urging the United States to seize Cuba militarily if Spain refused to sell the island. Many Northerners regarded this as a plot to extend slavery.
The Panic of 1819. The first major financial crisis in the United States, it marked the end of the economic expansion that had followed the War of 1812 and ushered in new financial policies that would shape economic development. Caused in large to factors in the larger Atlantic economy, it was made worse by land speculation and poor banking practices at home.
Paternalism. The belief that slaveholding was a duty and a burden and that slaveholders had to care for and discipline slaves as parents discipline children. The doctrine of paternalism guided much of the Southern rationale for slavery during the antebellum period. As a public expression of humanitarian ideals drawn from both the American Revolution and the Great Awakening, which spread Christianity far and wide, Southern plantation owners defined slavery not as an institution of brute force, but of responsible dominion over a less fortunate, less evolved people.
The Pendleton Act. A federal law that required that ten percent of the jobs in the federal government be awarded on the basis of merit and that government employees be selected through competitive exams. The act also made it unlawful to fire or demote for political reasons employees who were covered by the law and made it unlawful for employers to require employees to give political service or contributions. The Civil Service Commission was established to enforce this act. It was steered through Congress by Senator George Hunt Pendleton of Ohio and signed into law by President Chester A. Arthur on January 16, 1883.
Plessy v. Ferguson. The 1896 Supreme Court ruling that upheld the constitutionality of state laws requiring racial segregation in public facilities under the doctrine of “separate but equal.”
Popular sovereignty. The idea, first proposed in 1848 by Senator Lewis Cass of Michigan, that residents of a territory should be allowed to decide for themselves whether or not to allow slavery within their borders. The concept was popularized in the 1850s by Stephen A. Douglas and was invoked in the Compromise of 1850 and the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854. The events in “Bleeding Kansas” exposed the doctrine’s shortcomings, as pro- and anti-slavery forces battled each another to effect the outcome they desired.
The Pullman Strike. A strike conducted by workers at the Pullman Palace Car Company factory in 1894. Although centered in Chicago, it crippled railroad traffic nationwide, until the federal government intervened in early July, first with a comprehensive injunction essentially forbidding all boycott activity and then by dispatching regular soldiers to Chicago and elsewhere. The soldiers joined with local authorities in getting the trains running again, though not without considerable vandalism and violence. American Railway Union president Eugene Victor Debs was arrested and subsequently imprisoned for disregarding the injunction. The boycott and the union were broken by mid-July, partly because of the ARU’s inability to secure broader support from labor leaders.
The Quasi-War. An undeclared war between the United States and France fought between 1798 and 1800. It was the result of disagreements over treaties and America’s status as a neutral in the Wars of the French Revolution. Fought entirely at sea, the Quasi-War was largely a success for the fledgling US Navy as its vessels captured numerous French privateers and warships, while only losing one of its vessels. By late 1800, attitudes in France shifted and hostilities were concluded by the Treaty of Mortefontaine
The Quebec Act. An act of the Parliament passed in 1774 that set the procedures of governance in the Province of Quebec. In the Thirteen Colonies, the act, which had been passed in the same session of Parliament as a number of other acts designed as punishment for the Boston Tea Party and other protests, was passed along with the other Intolerable Acts also known as the Coercive Acts. The provisions of the Quebec Act were seen by the colonists as a new model for British colonial administration, which would strip the colonies of their elected assemblies. It seemed to void the land claims of the colonies by granting most of the Ohio Country to the province of Quebec. The Americans were especially angry that the act established Catholicism as the state church in Quebec. The Americans had fought hard in the French and Indian War, and now they were angry that the losers (the French in Quebec) were given all the rewards including lands belonging to the 13 colonies.
Reaganomics. The popular term used to describe the “supply side” economic policies of President Ronald Reagan (1981–1989). It called for widespread tax cuts, decreased social spending, increased military spending and the deregulation of domestic markets.
Tax cuts coupled with increased military spending cuts cost the federal government trillions of dollars, resulting in skyrocketing deficits, a tripling of the national debt (from one to three trillion dollars), and an upward redistribution of wealth (reversing an economic trend that began with the New Deal). Deregulation of the financial section led to serious problems on Wall Street and in the Savings and Loan industry.
The Red Scare. The promotion of fear of a potential rise of communism or radicalism in the United States. The First Red Scare (1919–1920) occurred in the years immediately following World War I and focused on preventing the rise of a homegrown, worker-led socialist revolution in the United States. The Second Red Scare (1947-1957) took place during the early years of the Cold War and was directed at exposing Soviet agents and sympathizers who influencing society, infiltrating the federal government, or both. During both periods, private citizens and government agencies, acting out of fear and anxiety, took drastic actions to expose and punish suspected communists and radicals.
Regents of the University of California v. Bakke. A 1978 Supreme Court ruling that upheld affirmative action, allowing race to be one of several factors in college admission policy, while ruling that specific racial quotas were impermissible.
The Renaissance. A period in European history marked by a renewed interest (or rebirth) in classical Greek and Roman ideas and values that had long been lost to Western Europe. It began in Florence in the 14th century and spread to the rest of Europe by the 17th century. To princes, explorers, cartographers, shipbuilders, artists, scholars, and thinkers of all kinds, it was a time of the revival of classical learning and wisdom after a long period of cultural decline and stagnation. This new thinking was evident in art, architecture, politics, science, engineering, and literature. The Renaissance witnessed the discovery, exploration, and conquest of new continents (thanks to the inventions of the era), the substitution of the Copernican for the Ptolemaic system of astronomy, the decline of the feudal system and the growth of commerce, and the invention or application of such potentially powerful innovations as paper, printing, the mariner’s compass, and gunpowder.
Roe v. Wade. A 1973 Supreme Court ruling that prohibited states from outlawing or regulating any aspect of abortion performed during the first trimester of pregnancy. According to the ruling, states could only enact abortion regulations reasonably related to maternal health in the second and third trimesters, and could enact abortion laws protecting the life of the fetus only in the third trimester.
The Salem Witch Trials. A series of trials that began in the spring of 1692, after a group of young girls in Salem Village, Massachusetts, claimed to be possessed by the devil and accused several local women of witchcraft. As a wave of hysteria spread throughout colonial Massachusetts, a special court convened in Salem to hear the cases; the first convicted witch, Bridget Bishop, was hanged that June. Eighteen others followed Bishop to Salem’s Gallows Hill, while some 150 more men, women and children were accused over the next several months. By September 1692, the hysteria had begun to abate and public opinion turned against the trials.
Salutary Neglect. A term used to describe England’s relatively benign neglect over the colonies from about 1690 to 1760. During these years King and Parliament rarely legislated constraints of any kind and allowed the colonists much autonomy in provincial and local matters. In turn, the colonists supported the parent nation’s economic and political objectives.
Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad. The Supreme Court ruling handed down in 1886 that held that the equal protection laws provided by the Fourteenth Amendment applied to corporations, thus establishing the doctrine of “corporate personhood.” The court’s unanimous decision, which was delivered by Justice John Marshall Harlan, protected businesses from many kinds of government regulations put forward on behalf of the public good.
The Scopes Monkey Trial. A legal case in which high school teacher John Scopes stood trial for teaching evolution in violation of a Tennessee state law. Two of the country’s most famous attorneys faced off in the trial, William Jennings Bryan, serving for the prosecution, and Clarence Darrow, representing Scopes. The trial, which took place in July 1925, took on a carnival-like atmosphere as thousands of people and one hundred print and radio journalists descended on the small town of Dayton, Tennessee. It came to symbolize the conflict between science and theology, faith and reason, individual liberty and majority rule, and was further popularized by the 1955 play, Inherit the Wind, which became a hit film in 1960.
The Seneca Falls Convention. The first meeting on behalf of women’s rights in American history. Spearheaded by Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott in July of 1848. Over 300 men and women came to Seneca Falls, New York to protest the mistreatment of women in social, economic, political, and religious life. The Declaration of Sentiments and Resolutions issued by the Convention, which was modeled after the Declaration of Independence, detailed the “injuries and usurpations” that men had inflicted upon women and demanded that women be granted all of the rights and privileges that men possessed, including the right to vote.
Shays’ Rebellion. An armed uprising that took place in central and western Massachusetts in 1786 and 1787. The rebellion involved indebted farmers who were protesting high taxes, high rents, and mortgage foreclosures and was named after Daniel Shays, a veteran of the American Revolutionary War and one of the rebel leaders. Although it never seriously threatened the stability of the United States, the rebellion greatly alarmed politicians throughout the nation. Proponents of constitutional reform at the national level cited the rebellion as justification for revision or replacement of the Articles of Confederation and Shays’ Rebellion figured prominently in the debates over the framing and ratification of the Constitution.
The Slave Power Conspiracy. The belief that the South’s largest slave owners and their political allies had engaged in a ruthless conspiracy to expand slavery into the western territories and expand the South’s slave empire. In his 1864 book, The Adder’s Den or Secrets of the Great Conspiracy to Overthrow Liberty in America, John Smith Dye, argued that the Southern “slaveocracy” had secretly assassinated two presidents by poison and unsuccessfully attempted to murder three others. Dye’s book was only one of the most extreme examples of conspiratorial charges that had been made by abolitionists since the late 1830s. By the 1850s, a growing number of Northerners had come to believe that an aggressive Southern slave power had seized control of the federal government and threatened to subvert republican ideals of liberty, equality, and self-rule.
Social Darwinism. A pseudo-scientific theory that holds that the laws of evolution and natural selection apply to racial and social groups, and that societies, like natural organisms, evolve through constant competition and “survival of the fittest,” a phrase coined by British philosopher and scientist Herbert Spencer. Popularized in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries by Spencer and Walter Bagehot in England, and William Graham Sumner in the United States, it was used to rationalize imperialism, racism, the concentration of wealth and lack of government protection of the weak.
The Social Gospel Movement. A religious movement that tied salvation and good works together. Adherents argued that people must emulate the life of Jesus Christ and apply Christian ethics to social problems, especially issues of social justice such as economic inequality, poverty, alcoholism, crime, racial tensions, slums, unclean environment, child labor, lack of unionization, poor schools, and the dangers of war. The Social Gospel was especially promulgated among liberal Protestant ministers, including Washington Gladden and Lyman Abbott, and was shaped by the persuasive works of Charles Monroe Sheldon, author of In His Steps: What Would Jesus Do? (1896) and Walter Rauschenbusch, who wrote Christianity and the Social Crisis (1907). Other important leaders included Washington Gladden, Richard T. Ely, and Josiah Strong. The movement was prominent in the United States from about 1870 to 1920.
Social Security Act of 1935. An act that established a system of old-age benefits for workers, benefits for victims of industrial accidents, unemployment insurance, aid for dependent mothers and children, the blind, and the physically handicapped.
The Stamp Act. A small tax on every piece of printed paper used by the colonists, the revenue raised would be used to help pay the costs of defending the American frontier. Proposed by George Grenville, the British first lord of the treasury and prime minister, and passed by Parliament in London without debate in 1765, it was the first direct tax on the colonies. It provoked severe reactions and united the colonists in opposition to parliamentary authority.
States Rights. The belief that all rights not delegated to the federal government by the US Constitution, nor denied by it to the states, belong to the states. This idea is rooted in strict construction of the Constitution . Advocates of states rights want to limit the powers of the federal government and extend autonomy of the individual state to the greatest possible degree. See the 10th Amendment
Strict Construction (of the Constitution). The belief that the federal government possesses only those powers expressly granted in the US Constitution. Strict construction requires lawmakers and judges to apply the text only as it is written. Advocates of “strict construction” believe that Congress can legitimately exercise only those functions enumerated in Article I, section 8, Clauses 1-17 of the Constitution. See “Loose Construction”
The Tet Offensive. A surprise military offensive by approximately 70,000 North Vietnamese and Viet Cong forces against US and South Vietnamese troops. Launched on January 31, 1968, the lunar new year holiday named Tet, it involved a coordinated series of attacks on more than 100 cities and towns in South Vietnam. General Vo Nguyen Giap, leader of the Communist People’s Army of Vietnam, planned the offensive in an attempt both to foment rebellion among the South Vietnamese people and encourage the United States to scale back its support of the Saigon regime. Though U.S. and South Vietnamese forces managed to hold off the Communist attacks, news coverage of the offensive shocked the American public and further eroded support for the war effort. Despite heavy casualties, North Vietnam achieved a strategic victory with the Tet Offensive, as the attacks marked a turning point in the Vietnam War and the beginning of the American withdrawal from southeast Asia.
The Treaty of Ghent. The treaty concluded between the United States and Great Britain that brought a formal end to the War of 1812. Signed on December 24, 1814 in Ghent, Belgium, it restored the relationship between the two nations to status quo antebellum. In addition, Great Britain agreed to relinquish claims to the Northwest Territory, and both countries pledged to work toward ending the slave trade. The United States gained influence as a foreign power for having fought Great Britain to what was essentially a draw.
The Treaty of Versailles. One of the peace treaties that formally ended the state of war between Germany and the Allied Powers. Signed on June 28, 1919 at the palace of Louis XIV outside Paris, it required Germany to surrender approximately 10 percent of its prewar territory and all of its overseas possessions, disarm, pay reparations, and assume blame for the war. The allied delegation, led by Woodrow Wilson, David Lloyd George, Vittorio Orlando, and Georges Clemenceau, also agreed to the establish the League of Nations. The treaty, which was never ratified by the Republican-controlled US Senate, left Germans feeling resentful, which helped give rise to fascism.
The Truman Doctrine. An international relations policy set forth by the U.S. President Harry Truman in a speech on March 12, 1947, which stated that the U.S. would support Greece and Turkey with economic and military aid to prevent them from falling into the Soviet sphere. Historians often consider it as the start of the Cold War, and the start of the containment policy to stop Soviet expansion.
Trust. A legal arrangement whereby one party conveys legal possession and title of certain property to a second party, called a trustee. While that trustee has ownership, s/he cannot use the property for herself, but holds it ‘in trust’ for the well-being of a beneficiary. Trusts are commonly used to hold inheritances for the benefit of children and other family members, for example. In business, such trusts, with corporate entities as the trustees, were used to combine several large businesses in order to exert complete control over a market. In that sense, the term trust is often used in a historical sense to refer to monopolies or near-monopolies.
Uncle Tom’s Cabin. An antislavery novel written by Harriet Beecher Stowe. Inspired by the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850, it brought to life the human suffering of slaves for many white northerners who had never seen slavery firsthand. The book changed forever how Americans viewed slavery, galvanized the abolitionist movement, and contributed to the growing sectional tensions that would culminate in civil war. The first installment appeared on June 5, 1851 in the antislavery newspaper, The National Era. Published in book form in 1852, it became a bestseller in the United States, Britain, Europe and Asia, and was translated into more than 60 languages.
Universal Manhood Suffrage. A form of voting rights in which all adult males within a political system are allowed to vote, regardless of income, property, religion, race, or any other qualification. The rise of Jacksonian democracy from the 1820s to 1850s led to a close approximation of universal manhood suffrage among whites being adopted in most states.
Vice Admiralty Courts. Juryless courts located in British colonies that were granted jurisdiction over local legal matters related to maritime activities, such as disputes between merchants and seamen. Judges were given five percent of confiscated cargo if they found a smuggling defendant guilty. This gave judges financial incentive to find defendants guilty, which led Colonists to believe that they were being tried unfairly. At the end of the French and Indian War eleven of these courts were stationed in the American Colonies. Each court covered a different region, some covered several colonies, but Pennsylvania had it’s own.
War Hawks. Nickname applied to young Republicans in Congress led by Speaker of the House Henry Clay of Kentucky. The War Hawks were ardent foes of Great Britain and advocates of territorial expansion. While Western War Hawks eyed Canada as a possible target of expansion, Southern War Hawks, led by John C. Calhoun of South Carolina, eyed Texas and Florida. Born citizens of the United States, not subjects of Great Britain, they were more nationalistic than the generation of founders they had replaced. Outraged by England’s continued violations of our “national honor” on the high seas and it’s alleged ties to hostile Native Americans on the frontier, they persuaded President James Madison to declare war on Great Britain in 1812.
The War Industries Board. A United States government agency established on July 28, 1917 to coordinate the purchase of war supplies between the War Department and the Navy Department during World War I. It encouraged companies to use mass-production techniques to increase efficiency and urged them to eliminate waste by standardizing products. The board set production quotas and allocated raw materials. It also conducted psychological testing to help people find the right jobs. The board was led initially by Frank Scott, who had previously been head of the General Munitions Board. He was replaced in November by Baltimore and Ohio Railroad president Daniel Willard. Finally, in January, 1918, the board was reorganized under the leadership of financier Bernard M. Baruch. The WIB dealt with labor-management disputes resulting from increased demand for products during World War I. The government could not negotiate prices and could not handle worker strikes, so the War Industries Board regulated the two to decrease tensions by stopping strikes with wage increases to prevent a shortage of supplies going to the war in Europe. Under the War Industries Board, industrial production in the U.S. increased 20 percent, however the vast majority of the war material was produced too late to do any good. The War Industries Board was decommissioned by an executive order on January 1, 1919.
Watergate. An apartment and office complex that gave its name to a scandal that would ultimately force President Richard M. Nixon to resign the presidency in 1974.
The Wilmot Proviso. The Wilmot Proviso. An amendment attached to a two-million dollar military appropriations bill that declared “neither slavery nor involuntary servitude shall ever exist” in lands won as a result of the Mexican war. Representative David Wilmot, a Democrat from Pennsylvania, first introduced it on August 8, 1846 in the hope that it would preserve the west as a haven for free white people who could work without the competition of slave labor. The Wilmot proviso passed in the House several times, only to be defeated in the Senate each time. It never became law.
Wilson’s 14 Points. Presented to a Joint Session of Congress on January 8, 1918, these were President Woodrow Wilson’s blueprint world peace. The first five dealt with issues of broad international concern, while the next eight points referred to specific territorial questions. Several addressed what Wilson perceived as the causes of World War I – (the abolition of secret treaties, a reduction in armaments, an adjustment in colonial claims in the interests of both native peoples and colonists, and freedom of the seas). Other proposals, he believed, would ensure world peace in the future (international free trade, the promise of “self-determination” for those oppressed minorities, and a world organization that would provide a system of collective security for all nations – the League of Nations). The Fourteen Points were used as the basis for peace negotiations at the Versailles Conference following World War I.
The XYZ Affair. A diplomatic incident between French and United States diplomats that resulted in a limited, undeclared war known as the Quasi-War. U.S. and French negotiators restored peace with the Convention of 1800, also known as the Treaty of Mortefontaine.
Yellow Journalism. A type of journalism practiced in the 1890’s by newspaper owners William Randolph Hearst and Joseph Pulitzer. Yellow journalists sensationalized – and even manufactured – dramatic events to sell millions of newspapers. They used melodrama, romance, and hyperbole to fuel public passions, which helped propel the United States into a war with Spain in 1898. The term yellow journalism came from a popular New York World comic called “Hogan’s Alley,” which featured a yellow-dressed character named the “the yellow kid.”
The Zimmerman Telegram. A telegram sent by German Foreign Minister Arthur Zimmerman to Germany’s minister to Mexico, Heinrich von Eckhardt instructing him to offer United States territory to Mexico if Mexico would agree to join the cause and launch an invasion into the southwestern United States. When the contents of the telegraph were made public in March of 1917 public support for neutrality disappeared, especially, in the region targeted for invasion. The Zimmerman telegram united the American public behind President Woodrow Wilson’s push for war with Germany.
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