Division and Unity
In his 1845 defense of the annexation of Texas, John O’Sullivan said this "divine" mission required the U.S. to "overspread and possess the whole of the continent."
What is Manifest Destiny?
Chief Justice Roger Taney’s 1857 majority opinion said that African Americans were not citizens and lacked the standing to perform this legal action in federal court.
What is sue?
On January 1, 1863, this executive order changed the Union's war aims by declaring slaves free in states in rebellion
What is the Emancipation Proclamation?
This 1867 legislation nullified Southern state governments and divided the rebel States into five military districts under federal authority.
What is the (First) Reconstruction Act?
This 1848 agreement ended formal hostilities and effectively reduced Mexico's geographic size by 55%, shifting the U.S. border to the Rio Grande.
What is the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo?
Due to the invalidy of state secessions, Lincoln’s First Inaugural Address argued that this entity was perpetual and could not be legally dissolved by a state.
What is the Union?
General Winfield Scott’s Anaconda strategy relied on a complete blockade of the coast and control of this specific geographic feature to envelop the Confederacy.
What is Mississippi River?
These restrictive state laws, such as those in Mississippi, used "vagrancy" clauses to re-enslave freedmen by leasing them out to former enslavers.
What are the Black Codes?
Though it failed in the Senate, this 1846 proposal sought to use the Mexican Cession to set the idea that "neither slavery nor involuntary servitude shall ever exist" in newly acquired lands.
What is the Wilmot Proviso?
After Lincoln’s 1860 election victory with zero Southern electoral votes, this state was the first to formalize its departure from the Union on December 20.
What is South Carolina?
At the dedication of a national cemetery, Lincoln used this 1776 document to argue the Union was "dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal."
What is the Declaration of Independence?
This federal agency provided food, shelter, clothing, and medical services, helping freed people in the Southern social order.
What is the Freedmen’s Bureau?
This 1850 legislative maneuver tried to stop secession by admitting California as a free state while leaving the status of other Western territories to be determined without "imposition by Congress."
What is the Compromise of 1850?
In a July 1861 message to Congress, Lincoln said this military engagement was not self-defense by the South, but as a forced choice between "immediate dissolution or blood."
What is the attack on Fort Sumter?
Believing it would break the pride of the South, this Union General uused Total War tactics during his 1865 approach through the Southern heartland.
What is William Tecumseh Sherman?
This 1862 Act aimed to democratize Western land ownership by offering 160-acre federal plots to any individual willing to cultivate the soil.
What is the Homestead Act?
This 1854 Act repealed the Missouri Compromise line, replacing federal mandate with the principle that states would be received "with or without slavery, as their constitution may prescribe."
What is the Kansas–Nebraska Act?
This judicial ruling denied Black citizenship and also declared that Congress lacked the authority to ban slavery in any federal territory.
What is Dred Scott v. Sandford?
Beyond freeing individuals, the Emancipation Proclamation changed the Union Army's composition by officially allowing this for the first time.
What is the enlistment of African American soldiers?
Signed in July 1862, this legislation donated federal lands to states to fund colleges for the benefit of agriculture and the mechanic arts.
What is the Morrill Land-Grant Act?