This phrase, coined by journalist John O’Sullivan in 1845, expressed the belief that the United States was meant to spread across the continent.
Manifest Destiny
Part of the Compromise of 1850, this harsh law required citizens to help capture escaped enslaved people.
Fugitive Slave Act
This nickname described how important cotton was to the Southern economy before the Civil War.
King Cotton
Issued by Lincoln on January 1, 1863, this document declared enslaved people in Confederate-held areas free.
The Emancipation Proclamation
Created in 1865, this federal agency gave freed people food, medical care, schools, and help with labor contracts.
The Freedman's Bureau
In this system, families farmed land owned by others in exchange for a share of the crop, and many fell into debt.
Sharecropping
What is the top tourist destination in the world?
Paris, France
This 1848 treaty ended the Mexican-American War and gave the United States California and the Southwest.
Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo
Promoted by Stephen Douglas, this idea let settlers in a territory vote on whether to allow slavery.
Popular sovereignty
Founded in 1854, this political party opposed the spread of slavery into the territories.
Republican Party
his 1863 Union victory in Pennsylvania, the war’s bloodiest battle, ended Lee’s invasion of the North.
Battle of Gettysburg
Ratified in 1868, this amendment guaranteed citizenship and equal protection of the laws to everyone born in the United States.
The Fourteenth Amendment
After Reconstruction, Southern states passed these segregation laws, named after a racist stage character.
What is the busiest airline in the world?
American Airlines
President Polk claimed Texas’s southern border was this river, while Mexico said it was the Nueces River.
Rio Grande
This 1854 law repealed the Missouri Compromise and set off violence known as “Bleeding Kansas.”
Kansas-Nebraska Act
The Confederate attack on this South Carolina fort in April 1861 began the Civil War.
Fort Sumter
This Union strategy aimed to squeeze the South with a naval blockade and control of the Mississippi River.
The Anaconda Plan
Passed by Southern legislatures under President Johnson, these laws restricted freed people’s work, movement, and legal rights.
The Black Codes
After the disputed election of 1876, this Republican became president.
Rutherford B. Hayes
What is the busiest airport in the world?
Atlanda
In 1847, Congressman Abraham Lincoln challenged President Polk’s reasons for war with this request.
The Spot Resolutions
In this 1857 case, Chief Justice Roger Taney ruled that African Americans could not be citizens and that Congress could not ban slavery in the territories.
Dred Scott v. Sanford
In 1859, John Brown tried to start a slave uprising by raiding a federal arsenal in this Virginia town.
Harper's Ferry
The Union general who led the Army of the Potomac at Antietam was fired by Lincoln for not pursuing Lee afterward.
George McClellan
Passed in 1867 over President Johnson’s veto, these laws divided the South into five military districts.
The Reconstruction Acts
White Southern Democrats who retook state governments from Republicans in the 1870s called themselves this.
The Redeemers
What is the busiest travel day in the year?
The Sunday after Thanksgiving
This 1846 proposal, which passed the House but never the Senate, would have banned slavery in any land gained from Mexico.
The Wilmot Proviso
The Missouri Compromise banned slavery in the Louisiana Purchase north of this line of latitude.
36°30′
Led by John Bell in 1860, this short-lived party tried to avoid the slavery issue by simply upholding the Constitution and the Union.
Constitutional Union Party
The border states that allowed slavery but remained in the Union during the American Civil War were:
Delaware, Maryland, Kentucky, Missouri, and West Virginia
Led by Thaddeus Stevens and Charles Sumner, this faction in Congress demanded stronger protections for freed people.
Radical Republicans
This deal settled a disputed presidential election and ended federal troop protection in the South.
The Compromise of 1877
The longest flight operating today is 18 hours and 50 minutes, and runs between these two cities.
Singapore and New York