5.2 and 5.3 (Manifest Destiny and Mexican American War
The belief that the U.S. had a God-given right to expand across North America.
Manifest Destiny
A proposal by Henry Clay that tried to settle disputes over slavery in territories gained from Mexico.
Compromise of 1850
This 1854 law allowed popular sovereignty in Kansas and Nebraska and repealed the Missouri Compromise.
Kansas-Nebraska Act
This early Civil War battle in 1861 was a Confederate victory that showed the war would be longer than expected.
First Battle of Bull Run (First Manassas)
This federal agency helped formerly enslaved people by providing food, education, and legal support after the Civil War.
Freedmen’s Bureau
The 1848 event where thousands of “forty-niners” rushed to California seeking gold and wealth.
California Gold Rush
A law in the Compromise of 1850 that forced citizens and officials to help capture escaped enslaved people.
Fugitive Slave Act of 1850
This term describes the violent conflict between proslavery and antislavery settlers in Kansas.
Bleeding Kansas
This Union strategy used naval forces to block Southern ports and cut off supplies.
Blockade (Anaconda Plan)
This Reconstruction plan allowed Southern states to rejoin the Union when 10% of voters took a loyalty oath.
Ten Percent Plan
The dispute between the U.S. and Mexico over whether Texas ended at the Nueces River or the Rio Grande.
U.S.-Mexico border dispute
The idea that settlers in a territory should decide whether slavery would be allowed there.
Popular sovereignty
This Supreme Court decision declared that Congress could not ban slavery in territories and that Black Americans were not citizens.
Dred Scott v. Sandford
This 1863 battle marked a turning point in the war and stopped the Confederate invasion of the North.
Battle of Gettysburg
These Southern laws restricted the rights of Black Americans and tried to maintain a system similar to slavery.
Black Codes
The U.S. president who promoted expansion and sent troops into disputed territory, helping start the Mexican-American War.
James K. Polk
A group of Northerners who opposed slavery mainly because they believed it hurt free labor and white farmers.
Free-Soilers
This 1859 raid on a federal arsenal aimed to spark a slave rebellion and increased sectional tensions.
John Brown’s Raid (Harpers Ferry)
This 1863 Union victory gave the North control of the Mississippi River and split the Confederacy in two.
Battle of Vicksburg
This system required farmers to give a portion of their crops to landowners, often trapping them in debt.
Sharecropping
The large amount of land the U.S. gained from Mexico in 1848, which increased tensions over slavery.
Mexican Cession
A major political crisis caused when California applied to enter the Union as a free state, upsetting the balance between slave and free states.
California statehood crisis
This 1860 election result led directly to Southern secession because the winner opposed the expansion of slavery.
Election of 1860 (Abraham Lincoln)
This order by Lincoln declared enslaved people in Confederate states free and allowed Black men to join the Union army.
Emancipation Proclamation
This 1877 agreement resolved a disputed election and led to the removal of federal troops from the South.
Compromise of 1877