1.
"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.
2.
"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 disenfranchised African Americans.
3.
"His Accidency": nickname given to John Tyler in 1841 by 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.
4.
"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.
5.
(cant read vocab word): 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.
6.
A. Mitchell Palmer: attorney general during the height of the Red Scare (1919-1920) who led raids against suspected radicals; reacting to terrorist bombings, fear of Bolshevism, and his own presidential aspirations, Palmer arrested 6,000 people and deported over 500.
7.
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.
8.
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.
9.
Act of Toleration: an act passed in Maryland 1649 that granted freedom
of worship to all Christians; although it was enacted to protect the Catholic minority in Maryland, it was a benchmark of religious freedom in all the colonies. It did not extend to non-Christians, however.
10.
Adams-Onis Treaty ( 1819): also known as the Florida Purchase Treaty and the Transcontinental Treaty; under its terms, the United States paid Spain $5 million for Florida, Spain recognized America's claims to the Oregon Country, and the United States surrendered its claim to northern Mexico (Texas).
11.
Agricultural Adjustment Administration (1933): New Deal program that paid farmers not to produce crops; it provided farmers with income while reducing crop surpluses and helped stabilize farm production. The Supreme Court declared major parts of this law unconstitutional in 1936, helping lead FDR to his court-packing plan.
12.
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.
13.
Alexander Hamilton: nationalist, first secretary of the treasury; he supported a strong central government and was founder of the Federalist Party.
14.
Alfred (Al) Smith: first Catholic ever nominated for president; he lost in 1928 because of the nation's prosperity but his religion, urban background, and views on Prohibition (he was a "wet") cost him votes as well.
15.
Alfred Thayer Mahan: naval officer, writer, teacher, and philosopher of the new imperialism of the 1890s; he stressed the need for naval power to drive expansion and establish America's place in the world as a great power.
16.
Alger Hiss: State Department official accused in 1948 of spying for the
Soviet Union; Richard Nixon became famous for his pursuit of Hiss, which
resulted in a perjury conviction and prison for Hiss. Although long seen as
a victim of Nixon's ruthless ambition and the Red Scare, recent scholarship
suggests that Hiss was indeed a Soviet agent.
17.
Alien and Sedition Acts: series of acts designed to suppress perceived French agents working against American neutrality; the acts gave the president power to deport "dangerous" aliens, lengthen the residency requirement for citizenship, and restrict freedoms of speech and press.
18.
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.
19.
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.
20.
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.
21.
American Liberty League: conservative anti-New Deal organization; members included Alfred Smith, John W. Davis, and the Du Pont family. It criticized the "dictatorial" policies of Roosevelt and what it perceived to be his attacks on the free enterprise system.
22.
American Society for the Promotion of Temperance: first national temperance organization, founded in 1826, which sent agents to preach total abstinence from alcohol; the society pressed individuals to sign pledges of sobriety and states to prohibit the use of alcohol.
23.
American System: set of proposals by Henry Clay that called for a national bank, protective tariffs, and internal improvements; their goal was American economic self-sufficiency.
24.
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.
25.
Andrew Jackson: U.S. general who defeated the Native Americans at Horseshoe Bend and commanded the victory over the British at New Orleans; he became a national hero as a result of his record in the War of 1812 and later rode that fame to the presidency
26.
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.
27.
Anglican Church: Church of England started by King Henry VIII in 1533; the monarch was head of the church, which was strongest in North America in the Southern Colonies. By 1776, it was the second-largest church in America behind the Congregationalists.
28.
Annapolis Convention: meeting held at Annapolis, Maryland, in 1786 to discuss interstate commerce; only five states sent delegates, but Alexander Hamilton used the forum to issue a call for the states to meet the next spring to revise the Articles of Confederation. The Annapolis Convention was a stepping-stone to creation of the Constitution.
29.
Anne Hutchison: charismatic colonist in Massachusetts Bay who questioned whether one could achieve salvation solely by good works; she led the Antinomain Controversy by challenging the clergy and laws of the colony. She was banished from Massachusetts in 1638 and was killed by Indians in 1643.
30.
Anti-Federalists: persons who opposed ratification of the U.S. Constitution by the states; in general, they feared the concentration of power the Constitution would place in the national government.
31.
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.
32.
Atlantic Charter (1941): joint statement issued by President Roosevelt and Britain's Prime Minister Winston Churchill of principals and goals for an Allied victory in World War II; it provided for self-determination for all conquered nations, freedom of seas, economic security, and free trade. Later, it became the embodiment of the United Nation's charter.
33.
Bacon's Rebellion: attack by frontiersmen led by Nathaniel Bacon against the Native Americans in the Virginia backcountry; when the governor opposed Bacon's action, Bacon attacked Jamestown, burned it, and briefly deposed the governor before the rebellion fizzled. This revolt is often viewed as the first strike against insensitive British policy, as a clash between East and West, and as evidence of the dangers of the indentured servant system.
34.
Barry Goldwater: unsuccessful presidential candidate against Lyndon
Johnson in 1964; he called for dismantling the New Deal, escalation of the
war in Vietnam, and the status quo on civil rights. Many see him as the
grandfather of the conservative movement of the 1980s.
35.
Battle of New Orleans: a major battle of the War of 1812 that actually took place after the war ended; American forces inflicted a massive defeat on the British, protected the city, and propelled Andrew Jackson to national prominence.
36.
Battle of Saratoga: turning point of the Revolution in October 1777, when an army of 6,000 British soldiers surrendered in New York; the battle resulted from a British attempt to divide the colonies through the Hudson River Valley. The American victory convinced the French to ally with the colonies and assured the ultimate success of independence.
37.
Battle of Yorktown: siege that ended in October 1781 when Washington trapped 8,000 British soldiers on a peninsula in Virginia after a British campaign in the southern colonies; this defeat caused the British to cease large-scale fighting in America and to start negotiations, which eventually led to the colonies' independence.
38.
Bay of Pigs: U.S.-supported invasion of Cuba in April 1961; intended to
overthrow Communist dictator Fidel Castro, the operation proved a fiasco.
Castro's forces killed 114 of the invaders and took nearly 1,200 prisoners.
The disaster shook the confidence of the Kennedy administration and
encouraged the Soviet Union to become more active in the Americas.
39.
Ben Franklin: America's leading diplomat of the time who served as a statesman and advisor throughout the Revolutionary era. He was active in all the prerevolutionary congresses and helped to secure the French alliance of 1778 and the Treaty of Paris, which formally ended the Revolution in 1783.
40.
Betty Friedan: author of The Feminine Mystique (1963), which raised the issue
of a woman's place in society and how deadening suburban "happiness" could
be for women; her ideas sparked the women's movement to life in the 1960s.
41.
Big Four: the leaders who constructed the Treaty of Versailles: Woodrow Wilson, Georges Clemenceau (France), David Lloyd George (Britain), and Vittorio Orlando (Italy)
42.
Big Stick policy: Theodore Roosevelt's method for achieving American goals in the Caribbean; it featured the threat and use of military force to promote America's commercial supremacy, to limit European intervention in the region, and to protect the Panama Canal.
43.
Black Cabinet: an informal network of black officeholders in the federal government; led by Mary McLeod Bethune, William Hastie, and Robert Weaver, they pushed for economic and political opportunities for African Americans in the 1930s and 1940s.
44.
Black Power: rallying cry for many black militants in the 1960s and
1970s; it called for blacks to stand up for their rights, to reject integration, to
demand political power, to seek their roots, and to embrace their blackness.
45.
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.
46.
Board of Trade and Plantations: chief body in England for governing the colonies; the group gathered information, reviewed appointments in America, and advised the monarch on colonial policy.
47.
Bonus Army: group of jobless World War I veterans who came to Washington to lobby Congress for immediate payment of money promised them in 1945; Hoover opposed payment, and when he used the U.S. Army to drive the veterans out of the capital, he was portrayed as cruel and cold-hearted.
48.
Booker T. Washington: influential black leader; his "Atlanta Compromise" speech (1895) proposed blacks accept social and political segregation in return for economic opportunities in agriculture and vocational areas . He received money from whites and built Tuskegee Institute into a powerful educational and political machine.
49.
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.
50.
Boston Massacre: confrontation between British soldiers and Boston citizens in March 1770. The troops shot and killed five colonials. American radicals used the event to roil relations between England and the colonies over the next five years.
51.
Boxer Rebellion (1900): an uprising against foreigners in China that trapped a group of diplomats in Peking (Beijing); their rescue by an international army created fears in the United States that China would be partitioned and prompted the Second Open Door Note.
52.
Brain(s) Trust: name applied to college professors from Columbia University such as Rexford Tugwell, Adolf Berle, and Raymond Moley who advised Roosevelt on economic matters early in the New Deal; the Brain Trust took on the role of an "unofficial Cabinet" in the Roosevelt Administration.
53.
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.
54.
Brown vs. Board of Education (1954): Supreme Court decision that
overturned the Plessy vs. Ferguson decision (1896); led by Chief Justice Earl
Warren, the Court ruled that "separate but equal" schools for blacks were
inherently unequal and thus unconstitutional. The decision energized the
Civil Rights Movement in the 1950s and 1960s.
55.
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.
56.
Calvin Coolidge: taciturn, pro-business president (1923-1929) who took over after Harding's death, restored honesty to government, and accelerated the tax cutting and antiregulation policies of his predecessor; his laissez faire policies brought short-term prosperity from 1923 to 1929.
57.
Camp David Accords (1979): agreement reached between the leaders of
Israel and Egypt after protracted negotiations brokered by President Carter;
Israel surrendered land seized in earlier wars and Egypt recognized Israel
as a nation. Despite high hopes, it did not lead to a permanent peace in
region, however.
58.
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 cheap luggage-hoping to exploit the South.
59.
Carrie Chapman Catt: president of the National American Woman Suffrage Association; Can led the organization when it achieved passage of the Nineteenth Amendment in 1920 and later organized the League of Women Voters.
60.
Charles Coughlin: Catholic priest who used his popular radio program to criticize the New Deal; he grew increasingly anti-Roosevelt and anti-Semitic until the Catholic Church pulled him off the air.
61.
Charles Finney: 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.
62.
Charles Lindbergh: mail service pilot who became a celebrity when he made the first flight across the Atlantic Ocean in 1927; a symbol of the vanishing individualistic hero of the frontier who was honest, modest, and self-reliant, he later became a leading isolationist.
63.
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.
64.
Chesapeake-Leopard Affair: incident in 1807 that brought on a war crisis when the British warship Leopard attacked the American warship Chesapeake; the British demanded to board the American ship to search for deserters from the Royal Navy. When the U.S. commander refused, the British attacked, killing or wounding 20 American sailors. Four alleged deserters were then removed from the Chesapeake and impressed. Many angry and humiliated Americans called for war.
65.
Chiang Kai Shek: ineffective and corrupt leader of China in 1930s and
1940s; he was a wartime ally of the United States, but was unable to stop
Communists from seizing power in 1949. Chiang's exile to Taiwan was a
major American setback in the early days of the Cold War.
66.
Civil Rights Act of 1964: proposed by John Kennedy and signed by
Lyndon Johnson; it desegregated public accommodations, libraries, parks,
and amusements and broadened the powers of federal government to protect
individual rights and prevent job discrimination.
67.
Civil Rights Act of 1965: sometimes called Voting Rights Act, it expanded
the federal government's protection of voters and voter registration; it
also increased federal authority to investigate voter irregularities and
outlawed literacy tests.
68.
Coercive Acts (1774): British actions to punish Massachusetts for the Boston Tea Party; they included closing the port of Boston, revoking
Massachusetts's charter, trying all British colonial officials accused of misdeeds outside the colony, and housing British troops in private dwellings. In the colonies, these laws were known as the Intolerable Acts, and they brought on the First Continental Congress in 1774.
69.
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.
70.
Compromise of 1850: proposal by Henry Clay to settle the debate over slavery in territories gained from the Mexican War; it was shepherded though 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.
71.
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.
72.
Congregationalists (Puritans): believed the Anglican Church retained too many Catholic ideas and sought to purify the Church of England; the Puritans believed in predestination (man saved or damned at birth) and also held that God was watchful and granted salvation only to those who adhered to His goodness as interpreted by the church. The Puritans were strong in New England and very intolerant of other religious groups.
73.
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.
74.
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.
75.
Cotton Diplomacy: 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.
76.
Court-packing plan: Roosevelt's proposal in 1937 to "reform" the Supreme Court by appointing an additional justice for every justice over age 70; following the Court's actions in striking down major New Deal laws, FDR came to believe that some justices were out of touch with the nation's needs. Congress believed Roosevelt's proposal endangered the Court's independence and said no.
77.
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.
78.
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.
79.
Cuban Missile Crisis: confrontation between the United States and the
USSR resulting from a Soviet attempt to place long-range nuclear missiles
in Cuba (October 1962); Kennedy forced the Soviets to remove them with a
blockade and the threat of force. The crisis enhanced Kennedy's standing
but led to a Soviet arms buildup.
80.
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.
81.
Daniel Webster: noted orator, constitutional lawyer, senator, secretary of state, and major spokesman for nationalism and the union in the 1830s, 1840s, and 1850s.
82.
Dartmouth College v. Woodward (1819): case in which the Supreme Court prevented New Hampshire from changing Dartmouth's charter to make it a public institution; the Court held that the contract clause of the Constitution extended to charters and that contracts could not be invalidated by state law. The case was one of a series of Court decisions that limited states' power and promoted business interests.
83.
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.
84.
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.
85.
Declaratory Act (1766): passed as the British Parliament repealed the Stamp Act; a face-saving action, it asserted Parliament's sovereignty over colonial taxation and legislative policies.
86.
Democratic Party: the modem-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.
87.
Democratic Republican Party: political party led by Thomas Jefferson; it feared centralized political power, supported states' rights, opposed Hamilton's financial plan, and supported ties to France. It was heavily influenced by agrarian interests in the southern states.
88.
Dien Bien Phu: French fortress in northern Vietnam that surrendered in
1954 to the Viet Minh; the defeat caused the French to abandon Indochina
and set the stage for the Geneva Conference, which divided the region and
led to American involvement in South Vietnam.
89.
Dollar Diplomacy: President Taft's policy that encouraged American business and financial interests to invest in Latin American countries to achieve U.S. economic and foreign policy goals and maintain control; if problems persisted, the United States reverted to the Big Stick option of the Roosevelt administration, turning to military intervention and employment of force to restore stability and peace.
90.
Dominion of New England: attempt to streamline colonial rule by combining all the New England colonies under the control of one governor in 1688; it was dissolved after the Glorious Revolution in England when its sponsors were deposed.
91.
Domino Theory: Eisenhower's metaphor that when one country fell to
Communists, its neighbors would then be threatened and collapse one after
another like a row of dominoes; this belief became a major rationale for U.S.
intervention in Vietnam.
92.
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.
93.
Douglas MacArthur: World War 11 hero who led United Nations forces
during the Korean War; his outspoken opposition to President Tr unari s
decisions to limit the war cost him his command. He wanted to bomb
China, and Truman rejected the idea as too reckless.
94.
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.
95.
Dwight Eisenhower: World War II hero and president, 1953-1961; his
internationalist foreign policy continued Truman's policy of containment
but put greater emphasis on military cost-cutting, the threat of nuclear
weapons to deter Communist aggression, and Central Intelligence Agency
activities to halt communism.
96.
Earl Warren: controversial Chief Justice of the Supreme Court (1953-1969);
he led the Court in far-reaching racial, social, and political rulings, including
school desegregation and protecting rights of persons accused of crimes.
97.
Edmund Andros: autocratic and unpopular governor of the Dominion of New England; he was toppled from power and was caught while trying to make his escape dressed as a woman.
98.
Eighteenth Amendment (1919): prohibited the sale, transportation, and manufacture of alcohol; part of rural America's attempt to blunt the societal influence of the cities, it was called the "Noble Experiment" until it was repealed by the Twenty-first Amendment (1933}.
99.
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.
100.
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.
101.
Embargo Act (1807): law passed by Congress stopping all U.S. exports until British and French interference with U.S. merchant ships stopped; the policy had little effect except to cause widespread economic hardship in America. It was repealed in 1809.
102.
Emilio Aguinaldo: Filipino patriot who led a rebellion against both Spain and the United States from 1896 to 1902, seeking independence for the Philippines; his capture in 1901 helped break the resistance to American control of the islands.
103.
Equal Rights Amendment (ERA): proposed amendment to the U.S.
Constitution passed by Congress and submitted to the states for ratification
in 1971; outlawing discrimination based on gender, it was at first seen as a
great victory by women's-rights groups. The amendment fell 3 states short
of the 38 required for ratification. However, many states have adopted similar
amendments to their state constitutions.
104.
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.
105.
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.
106.
Fair Deal: Truman's legislative program; it was largely an extension of
the New Deal of the 1930s, and Truman had little success convincing
Congress to enact it.
107.
Farewell Address: presidential message in which Washington warned the nation to avoid both entangling foreign alliances and domestic "factions" (political parties); the ideas of the address became the basis of isolationist arguments for the next 150 years.
108.
Federal Highway Act (1956): largest public works project in United
States history; Eisenhower signed the law, which built over 40,000 miles
of highways in the United States at a cost of $25 billion and created the
interstate highway system.
109.
Federal Reserve Act (1913): established a national banking system for the first time since the 1830s; designed to combat the "money trust," it created 12 regional banks that regulated interest rates, money supply, and provided an elastic credit system throughout the country.
110.
Federalist Papers: eighty-five essays written by Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay and published in newspapers to convince New York to ratify the Constitution; taken together, they are seen as a treatise on the foundations of the Constitution.
111.
Federalist Party: political party led by Alexander Hamilton; it favored a strong central government, commercial interests, Hamilton's financial plan, and close ties to England. Its membership was strongest among the merchant class and property owners.
112.
Federalists: persons who favored ratification of the U.S. Constitution by the states; they are not to be confused with the later Federalist Party.
113.
Fidel Castro: Communist leader of Cuba who led a rebellion against the
U.S.-backed dictator and took power in 1959; President Kennedy tried to overthrow
him with the Bay of Pigs invasion in 1961 but failed. Castro became
closely allied with the Soviet Union, making the Kennedy Administration
increasingly concerned about Soviet influence in the Western Hemisphere.
114.
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.
115.
Fireside chats: Roosevelt's informal radio addresses throughout his presidency; they gave the people a sense of confidence that he understood their problems and was trying to help solve them. With these "chats," FDR was the first president to use the electronic media to spread his message.
116.
First Great Awakening: religious revival in the colonies in 1730s and 1740s;
George Whitefield and Jonathan Edwards preached a message of atonement for sins by admitting them to God. The movement attempted to combat the growing secularism and rationalism of mid-eighteenth century America.
117.
Fletcher v. Peck (1810): Supreme Court case that established the Court's power to invalidate state laws contrary to the Constitution; in this case, the Court prevented Georgia from rescinding a land grant even though it was fraudulently made.
118.
Fourteen Points (1918): Woodrow Wilson's vision for the world after World War I; it called for free trade, self-determination for all peoples, freedom of the seas, open diplomacy, and a League of Nations. Wilson hoped his Fourteen Points would be the basis for a negotiated settlement to end the war. However, they were not harsh enough on Germany for the other Allies to accept. Only a few of them were incorporated into the treaty.
119.
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.
120.
Frances Perkins: Roosevelt's secretary of labor (1993-1945); the first
woman to serve as a federal Cabinet officer, she had a great influence on
many New Deal programs, most significantly the Social Security Act.
121.
Francis Townsend: retired physician who proposed an Old Age Revolving Pension Plan to give every retiree over age 60 $200 per month, provided that the person spend the money each month in order to receive their next payment; the object of Townsend's plan was to help retired workers as well as stimulate spending in order to boost production and end the Depression.
122.
Franklin D. Roosevelt: President (1933-1945); elected four times, he led the country's recovery from the Depression and to victory in World War II. He died in office, however, just weeks before Germany's surrender. He is generally considered the greatest president since Abraham Lincoln.
123.
Franklin Pierce: northern Democratic president with southern principles, 1853-1857, who signed the Kansas-Nebraska Act and sought sectional harmony above all else.
124.
Fredrick Douglass: 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.
125.
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.
126.
Freedmen's Bureau: 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.
127.
Freedom rides: civil rights campaign of the Congress of Racial Equality
in which protesters traveled by bus through the South to desegregate bus
stations; white violence against them prompted the Kennedy administration
to protect them and become more involved in civil rights.
128.
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 transcontinental railroad line through the southern United States. However, the route was never used.
129.
George Dewey: naval hero of the Spanish-American War; his fleet defeated the Spanish at Manila Bay and gave the United States a tenuous claim to the Philippine Islands.
130.
George III: king of England during the American Revolution. Until 1776, the colonists believed he supported their attempt to keep their rights. In reality, he was a strong advocate for harsh policies toward them.
131.
George Keenan: State Department official who was architect of the containment
concept; in his article "The Source of Soviet Conduct" he said the
USSR was historically and ideologically driven to expand and that the
United States must practice "vigilant containment" to stop this expansion.
132.
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 1864 on an antiwar platform.
133.
George McGovern: unsuccessful Democratic candidate for president in
1972; he called for immediate withdrawal from Vietnam and a guaranteed
income for the poor. When his vice presidential choice got into trouble, he
waffled in his defense, which cost him further with the electorate.
134.
George Wallace: Alabama governor and third-party candidate for
president in 1968 and 1972; he ran on a segregation and law-and-order
platform. Paralyzed by an attempted assassination in 1972, he never
recovered politically.
135.
George Washington: commander of the colonial army; while not a military genius, his integrity and judgment kept the army together. Ultimately,
he was indispensable to the colonial cause.
136.
Gerald Ford: president, 1974-1977, who served without being elected
either president or vice president; appointed vice president under the terms
of the Twenty-Fifth Amendment when Spiro Agnew resigned, he assumed
the presidency when Nixon resigned.
137.
Gibbon v. Ogden (1824): landmark case in which the Supreme Court struck down a New York law that granted a monopoly to certain steamboats operating between New York and New Jersey; the ruling expanded the powers the Constitution gave Congress to regulate interstate commerce. It was another of the cases during this period whereby the Supreme Court expanded federal power and limited states' rights.
138.
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.
139.
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.
140.
Great Compromise: broke the impasse at the Constitutional Convention over congressional representation. Congress would consist of two house seats in the lower assigned according to each state's population and states having equal representation in the upper chamber.
141.
Great Migration: movement of southern, rural blacks to northern cities starting around 1915 and continuing through much of the twentieth century; blacks left the South as the cotton economy declined and Jim Crow persisted. Thousands came north for wartime jobs in large cities during World Wars I and II.
142.
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.
143.
Gulf of Tonkin Resolution (1964): an authorization by Congress
empowering President Johnson "to take all necessary measures" to protect
U.S. forces in Vietnam; it was issued following reported attacks on U.S.
destroyers off the Vietnam coast. Congress later regretted this action as
the Vietnam War escalated, and questions emerged about the legitimacy of
the attacks.
144.
H. R. Haldeman: key aide to President Nixon who ordered the CIA and
FBI not to probe too deeply into the Watergate break-in; he helped provide
money to keep the burglars quiet and was later sentenced to prison for his
role in Watergate.
145.
Halfway Covenant: Puritan response to the dilemma of what to do with the children born to nonchurch members as fewer and fewer Puritans sought full membership (visible sainthood) in the church; leaders allowed such children to be baptized, but they could not take communion , nor could nonchurch males vote in government/church affairs.
146.
Harlem Renaissance: black artistic movement in New York City in the 1920s, when writers, poets, painters, and musicians came together to express feelings and experiences, especially about the injustices of Jim Crow; leading figures of the movement included Countee Cullen, Claude McKay, Duke Ellington, Zora Neale Hurston, and Langston Hughes.
147.
Harriet Beecher Stowe: author of Uncle Tom's Cabin, a best selling 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.
148.
Harry Hopkins: close adviser to Roosevelt and FDR's czar of relief programs; he headed the Federal Emergency Relief Administration, Civil Works Administration, and Works Progress Administration and later undertook diplomatic missions to the USSR.
149.
Harry S. Truman: vice president who became president when FDR died in April 1945; he was elected on his own in 1948. Truman ordered the use of atomic bombs on Japan to end World War II, set the course of postwar containment of communism in the Cold War, and created a Fair Deal program to carry on the New Deal's domestic agenda.
150.
Hartford Convention: meeting of New England state leaders in 1814; among other things, the delegates called for restrictions on embargoes and limits on presidential tenure. The end of the war brought an end to the gathering, but it was later branded as unpatriotic and helped bring on the collapse of the Federalist Party.
151.
Hawley-Smoot Tariff (1930): raised the duties on imported foreign goods to all-time highs; intended to boost American industry and employment, it actually deepened the Depression when European countries could not repay their loans (World War I war debts) and retaliated against American exports.
152.
Haymarket Square Riot: 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.
153.
Headright system: means of attracting settlers to colonial America; the system gave land to a family head and to anyone he sponsored coming to the colony, including indentured servants. The amount of land varied from fifty to two hundred acres per person.
154.
Henry Cabot Lodge: chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee who accepted the Treaty of Versailles and membership in the League but demanded reservations to the League to maintain congressional authority in foreign affairs; Wilson's unwillingness to accept these conditions caused the Senate to reject the treaty.
155.
Henry Clay: leading American statesman from 1810 to 1852; he served as a member of Congress, Speaker of the House, senator, and secretary of state and made three unsuccessful presidential bids. He was known as the Great Compromiser for his role in the compromises of 1820, 1833, and 1850.
156.
Henry Kissinger: advisor to Presidents Nixon and Ford; he was architect
of the Vietnam settlement, the diplomatic opening to China, and detente
with the Soviet Union.
157.
Herbert Hoover: president (1929-1933) who is blamed for the Great Depression; although he tried to use government power to bring on recovery, his inflexibility and refusal to give direct relief doomed his programs and his presidency.
158.
Hippie: members of the youthful counterculture that dominated many
college campuses in the 1960s; rather than promoting a political agenda,
they challenged conventional sexual standards, rejected traditional economic
values, and encouraged the use of drugs.
159.
Ho Chi Minh: Communist leader of North Vietnam; he and his Viet
Minh/Viet Cong allies fought French and American forces to a standstill in
Vietnam, 1946-1973. Considered a nationalist by many, others viewed him
as an agent of the Soviet Union and China.
160.
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.
161.
Hoovervilles: camps and shantytowns of unemployed and homeless on the outskirts of major cities during the early days of the Depression; they were symbols of the failure of Hoover's program and the way the nation held him responsible for the hard times.
162.
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.
163.
House of Burgesses: first popularly-elected legislative assembly in America; it met in Jamestown in 1619.
164.
House Un-American Activities Committee: congressional committee
formed in the 1930s to investigate perceived threats to democracy; in the
1940s, the committee laid foundation for the Red Scare as it investigated
allegations of Communist subversion in Hollywood and pursued
Alger Hiss.
165.
Hubert Humphrey: liberal senator from Minnesota and Lyndon
Johnson's vice president who tried to unite the party after the tumultuous
1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago; he narrowly lost the
presidency to Richard Nixon that year.
166.
Huey Long: flamboyant Louisiana governor and U.S. senator; he challenged FDR to do more for the poor and needy and proposed a popular
"Share-Our-Wealth" program to tax the wealthy in order to provide a guaranteed
income for the poor. He was assassinated in 1935.
167.
Hundred Days: term applied to the first weeks of the Roosevelt
Administration, during which Congress passed 13 emergency relief and
reform measures that were the backbone of the early New Deal; these
included the Civilian Conservation Corp, the Glass Stegal Act (FDIC),
Agricultural Adjustment Act, Federal Emergency Relief Act, and the
National Industrial Recovery Act.
168.
Ida Tarbell: crusading journalist who wrote The History of the Standard Oil Company, a critical expose that documented John D. Rockefeller's ruthlessness and questionable business tactics.
169.
Impressment: the forceful drafting of American sailors into the British navy; between 1790 and 1812, over ten thousand Americans were
impressed, the British claiming that they were deserters from the Royal navy. This was the principle cause of the War of 1812.
170.
Indentured servants: mainstay of the labor needs in many colonies, especially in the Chesapeake regions in the seventeenth century; indentured servants were "rented slaves" who served four to seven
years and then were freed to make their way in the world. Most of the servants were from the ranks of the poor, political dissenters, and criminals in England.
171.
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.
172.
Industrial Workers of the World (Wobblies): revolutionary industrial union founded in 1905 and led by "Big Bill" Haywood that worked to overthrow capitalism; during World War I, the government pressured the group, and by 1919, it was in serious decline.
173.
Iran Hostage Crisis (1979-1981): incident in which Iranian radicals, with
government support, seized 52 Americans from the U.S. embassy and held
them for 444 days; ostensibly demanding the return of the deposed Shah to
stand trial, the fundamentalist clerics behind the seizure also hoped to punish
the United States for other perceived past wrongs.
174.
Iran-Contra Affair (1986-1987 ): scandal that erupted after the Reagan
administration sold weapons to Iran in hopes of freeing American hostages
in Lebanon; money from the arms sales was used to aid the Contras (anti-
Communist insurgents) in Nicaragua, even though Congress had prohibited
this assistance. Talk of Reagan's impeachment ended when presidential
aides took the blame for the illegal activity.
175.
James B. Weaver: former Civil War general who ran for president with the Greenback Party (1880) and the Populist Party (1892).
176.
James Bimey: 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.
177.
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 1860 and 1861.
178.
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.
179.
James Madison: strong nationalist who organized the Annapolis Convention, authored the Virginia Plan for the Constitution, and drafted the
constitutional amendments that became the Bill of Rights; he was also a founding member of the Democratic Republican Party.
180.
James McCord: one of the "plumbers" who worked for the White House
to plug "leaks" to the media; he committed illegal break-ins and surveillances.
His revelations in 1973 that he was being paid to keep quiet began
the unraveling of the Watergate cover-up.
181.
Jane Addams: social worker and leader in the settlement house movement; she founded Hull House in 1889, which helped improve the lives of poor immigrants in Chicago, and in 1931 shared the Nobel Peace Prize.
182.
Jay's Treaty (1794): agreement that provided England would evacuate a series of forts in U.S. territory along the Great Lakes; in return, the United States agreed to pay pre-Revolutionary War debts owed to Britain. The British also partially opened the West Indies to American shipping. The treaty was barely ratified in the face of strong Republican opposition.
183.
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.
184.
Jim Crow laws: series of laws passed in southern states in the 1880s and 1890s 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.
185.
Jimmy Carter: president, 1977-1981; he aimed for a foreign policy "as
good and great as the American people." His highlight was the Camp
David Accords; his low point, the Iran Hostage Crisis. Defeated for reelection
after one term, he became very successful as an ex-president.
186.
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.
187.
John Brown: violent abolitionist who murdered slaveholders in Kansas and Missouri (1856-1858) before his raid at Harpers Ferry (1859), hoping to incite a slave rebellion; he failed and was executed, but his martyrdom by northern abolitionists frightened the South.
188.
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.
189.
John D. Rockefeller: founder of Standard Oil Company; at one time his companies controlled 85-90 percent of refined oil in America.
190.
John Dean: White House aide who participated in the Watergate cover-up;
in a plea bargain, he testified that President Nixon knew and participated in
the cover-up. Many did not believe his testimony until the White House
tapes surfaced.
191.
John Dickinson: conservative leader who wrote Letters from a Farmer in Pennsylvania; he advocated for colonial rights but urged conciliation with England and opposed the Declaration of Independence. Later, he helped write the Articles of Confederation.
192.
John F. Kennedy (JFK): president, 1961 1963, and the youngest president ever elected, as well as the first Catholic to serve; he had a moderately progressive
domestic agenda and a hard-line policy against the Soviets. His
administration ended when Lee Harvey Oswald assassinated him.
193.
John Fiske: historian and expansionist who argued that, with the superiority of its democracy, the United States was destined to spread over "every land on the earth's surface."
194.
John Foster Dulles: Eisenhower 's secretary of state, 1953-1959; moralistic
in his belief that Communism was evil and must be confronted with
"brinkmanship" (the readiness and willingness to go to war) and "massive
retaliation" (the threat of using nuclear weapons).
195.
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.
196.
John Hay: secretary of state in the McKinley and Theodore Roosevelt administrations; he was the author of the Open Door Notes, which attempted to protect American interests in China in the early 20th century by asking European countries to pledge equal trading rights in China and the protection of its territory from foreign annexation.
197.
John Jay: diplomat in negotiating the Treaty of Paris (1783); he secretly
dealt with the British representatives at Paris and gained all of America's goals for independence despite the deviousness and meddling of France and Spain.
198.
John L. O'Sullivan: influential editor of the Democratic Review who coined the phrase "manifest destiny" in 1845.
199.
John Locke: English philosopher who wrote that governments have a duty to protect people's life, liberty, and property; many colonial leaders read his ideas and incorporated them into their political rhetoric and thinking.
200.
John Marshall: Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court, 1801-1835; arguably America's most influential Chief justice, he authored Court decisions that incorporated Hamilton's Federalist ideas into the Constitution. He also established the principle of judicial review, which gave the Court equality with the other branches of government.
201.
John Mitchell: Nixon's first attorney general and his close friend and
adviser; many people believe he ordered the Watergate break-in. He participated
in the cover-up and served nineteen months in prison for his role.
202.
John Pershing: American commander in France during World War I; his nickname of "Black Jack" resulted from his command of black troops earlier in his career. Before being dispatched to France, Pershing led an American incursion into Mexico in 1916 in a failed attempt to capture Mexican revolutionary Pancho Villa.
203.
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.
204.
John Smith: saved Jamestown through firm leadership in 1607 and 1608; he imposed work and order in the settlement and later published several books promoting colonization of North America.
205.
John Winthrop: leader of the Puritans who settled in Massachusetts Bay in the 1630s; he called for Puritans to create "a city upon a hill" and guided the colony through many crises, including the banishments of Roger Williams and Anne Hutchinson.
206.
Jonathan Edwards: Congregational minister of the 1740s who was a leading voice of the Great Awakening; his Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God attacked ideas of easy salvation and reminded the colonists of the absolute sovereignty of God.
207.
Joseph McCarthy: junior senator from Wisconsin who charged hundreds
of Americans with working for or aiding the Soviet Union during
the Cold War; he had no evidence but terrorized people from 1950 to 1954,
ruining their lives and careers with his reckless charges until Senate censured
him in December 1954.
208.
Joseph Stalin: Joseph Stalin
209.
Josiah Strong: expansionist who blended racist and religious reasons to justify American expansion in the 1880s and 1890s; he saw the Anglo-Saxon race as trained by God to expand throughout the world and spread Christianity along the way.
210.
Julius and Ethel Rosenberg: an engineer and his wife who were accused,
tried, and executed in the early 1950s for running an espionage ring in New
York City that gave atomic secrets to the Soviet Union; long considered
unjustly accused victims of the Red Scare, recent evidence suggests that
Julius was indeed a Soviet agent.
211.
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 attractive a proposed route for a transcontinental railroad that ended in Chicago, in his home state of Illinois.
212.
Kate Millett: author of Sexual Politics (1969), a book that energized the
more radical elements in the women's liberation movement with its confrontational
messages about the male-dominated power structure in
American society.
213.
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.
214.
Know-Nothing Party: influential third party of the 1840s; it opposed immigrants, especially Catholics, and supported temperance, a waiting
period for 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."
215.
Ku Klux Klan: Reconstruction-era organization that was revived in 1915 and rose to political power in the mid-1920s when membership reached 4 to 5 million; opposed to blacks, Catholics, Jews, and immigrants, its membership was rural, white, native-born, and Protestant.
216.
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.
217.
Langston Hughes: leading literary figure of the Harlem Renaissance who wrote verse, essays, and 32 books; he helped define the black experience in America for over four decades.
218.
Lend Lease (1941): program authorizing the president to lend or lease
equipment to nations whose defense was deemed vital to the U.S. security;
it was designed to help a bankrupt Britain continue fighting the Nazis. By
1945, the United States had extended $50 billion in wartime aid to Britain
and the Soviet Union.
219.
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.
220.
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.
221.
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 Birney ran as the party candidate in 1840 and 1844. In 1848, it merged into the Free Soil Party.
222.
Lincoln Steffens: leading muckraking journalist who exposed political corruption in the cities; best known for his The Shame of Cities (1904), he was also a regular contributor to McClure's magazine.
223.
Loose constructionist: person who believes that the "elastic clause" of the Constitution (Article 1, Section 8, paragraph 18) gives the central government wide latitude of action; loose constructionists hold that even powers not explicitly set forth in the Constitution may be exercised if it is "necessary and proper" to carry out powers that are specifically stated.
224.
Louisiana Purchase: an 828,000-square-mile region purchased from France in 1803 for $15 million; the acquisition doubled the size of the United States and gave it control of the Mississippi River and New Orleans. Jefferson uncharacteristically relied on implied powers in the Constitution (loose construction) for the authority to make the purchase.
225.
Loyalists (Tories): colonists who remained loyal to England; they often were older, better educated people who were members of the Anglican Church. The British hoped to use them as a pacification force but failed to organize them properly.
226.
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.
227.
Lusitania: British passenger liner sunk by a German submarine in May 1915; among the 1,200 deaths were 128 Americans. This was the first major crisis between the United States and Germany and a stepping-stone for American involvement in World War I.
228.
Lyndon Johnson: president, 1963-1969; his escalation of the Vietnam War
cost him political support and destroyed his presidency. He increased the
number of U.S. troops in Vietnam from 16,000 in 1963 to 540,000 in 1968.
After the Tet Offensive, he decided to not seek reelection.
229.
Lyndon Johnson: president, 1963-1969, who took over for Kennedy and
created the Great Society, a reform program unmatched in the twentieth
century; however, his Vietnam policy divided the country and his party,
and he retired from politics in 1969.
230.
Macon's Bill No. 2 (1810): modified embargo that replaced the Non-Intercourse Act of 1809; this measure reopened trade with both Britain and France but held that if either agreed to respect America's neutrality in their conflict, the United States would end trade with the other.
231.
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.
232.
Malcolm X (Little): militant black leader associated with the Nation of
Islam (Black Muslims); he questioned Martin Luther King's strategy of
nonviolence and called on blacks to make an aggressive defense of their
rights. He was assassinated by fellow Muslims in 1965.
233.
Manifest Destiny: 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.
234.
Mao Zedong: Communist Chinese leader who won control of China in
1949; a wary ally of the Soviet Union, Mao was an implacable foe of the
United States until the 1970s.
235.
Marbury v. Madison (1803): court case that established the principle of judicial review, which allowed the Supreme Court to determine if federal laws were constitutional. In this case, the Court struck down part of the Judiciary Act of 1789, which the justices believed gave the Court power that exceeded the Constitution's intent.
236.
Marcus Garvey: black leader in early 1920s who appealed to urban blacks with his program of racial self-sufficiency/separatism, black pride, and pan-Africanism; his Universal Negro Improvement Association ran into financial trouble, however. He was eventually arrested for mail fraud and deported to his native Jamaica in 1927.
237.
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.
238.
Marshall Plan (1947-1954): Secretary of State George Marshall's economic
aid program to rebuild war-torn Western Europe; it amounted to an
enlarged version of the Truman Doctrine, with billions of dollars going to
revive European economies and contain Communism.
239.
Martin Luther King, Jr. (MLK): America's greatest civil rights leader, 1955-1968;
his nonviolent protests gained national attention and resulted in government
protection of African American rights. He was assassinated in 1968 in
Memphis, Tennessee.
240.
Martin Van Buren: Chris accidentally made the definition the same as the term on this one...just remember that this guy was a failure as he faced the Panic of 1837 throughout his administration
241.
Massive retaliation: idea that United States should depend on nuclear
weapons to stop Communist aggression; prompted by the frustration of the
Korean War stalemate and the desire to save money on military budgets,
the concept reduced reliance on conventional forces.
242.
Mayflower Compact: agreement in 1620 to create a body politic among the male settlers in Plymouth; it was the forerunner to charters and constitutions that were eventually adopted in all the colonies.
243.
McCulloch v. Maryland (1819): Supreme Court case in which the Court established the supremacy of federal law over state law; in this case, the Court set aside a Maryland law that attempted to control the actions of the Baltimore branch of the Second National Bank by taxing it. By preventing Maryland from regulating the Bank, the ruling strengthened federal supremacy, weakened states' rights, and promoted commercial interests.
244.
Mercantilism: economic doctrine that called for the mother country to dominate and regulate its colonies; the system fixed trade patterns, maintained high tariffs, and discouraged manufacturing in the colonies.
245.
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.
246.
Missouri Compromise (1820): settlement of a dispute over the spread of slavery that was authored by Henry Clay; the agreement had three parts: (1) Missouri became the twelfth slave state; (2) to maintain the balance between free states and slave states in Congress, Maine became the twelfth free state; (3) the Louisiana territory was divided at 36° 30', with the northern part closed to slavery and the southern area allowing slavery. This compromise resolved the first real debate over the future of slavery to arise since the Constitution was ratified.
247.
Monroe Doctrine: issued to counter a perceived threat from European powers to the newly-independent nations of Latin America; it proclaimed: (1) no new colonization in the western hemisphere; (2) existing colonies would not be interfered with; and (3) the United States would not interfere in European affairs. It became the cornerstone of U.S. Latin American policy for the next century.
248.
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.
249.
National Defense Education Act (1958): law that authorized the use of
federal funds to improve the nation's elementary and high schools; inspired
by Cold War fears that the United States was falling behind the Soviet
Union in the arms and space race, it was directed at improving science,
math, and foreign-language education.
250.
National Labor Relations Act (1935): created a National Labor Relations
Board that could compel employers to recognize and bargain with unions;
this law helped promote the growth of organized labor in the 1930s and for
decades thereafter.
251.
National Organization for Women (NOW): founded by Betty Friedan
and others in 1966; it focused on women's rights in the workplace, fought
against legal and economic discrimination against women, and lobbied for
the Equal Rights Amendment.
252.
National Recovery Administration (1933): agency that created a partnership
between business and government to fight the Depression; it allowed
major industries to fix prices in return for agreeing to fair practice codes,
wage and hour standards, and labor's right to organize. Major parts of the
law that created the NRA were declared unconstitutional in 1935.
253.
Navigation Acts: series of English laws to enforce the mercantile system; the laws established control over colonial trade, excluded all but British ships in commerce, and enumerated goods that had to be shipped to England or to other English colonies. The acts also restricted colonial manufacturing.
254.
Neutrality Acts (1935, 1936, 1937): series of laws that provided Americans
could not ship weapons, loan money, travel on belligerent ships, extend
credit, or deliver goods to any belligerent countries; they were high tide of
isolationism, and all were repealed between 1939 and 1941.
255.
New Deal (1933-1938): Roosevelt's program of domestic reform and
relief; the three Its of Relief, Reform, and Recovery did not end the
Depression, but they gave hope and security and made government more
responsive to the people in bad economic times.
256.
New Jersey Plan: offered by William Paterson to counter the Virginia Plan; it favored a one-house of Congress with equal representation for each state. It maintained much of the Articles of Confederation but strengthened the government's power to tax and regulate commerce.
257.
New Left: label for the political radicals of the 1960s; influenced by "Old
Left" of the 1930s, which had criticized capitalism and supported successes
of Communism, the New Left supported civil rights and opposed American
foreign policy, especially in Vietnam.
258.
New Nationalism: Theodore Roosevelt's progressive platform in the election of 1912; building on his presidential "Square Deal," he called for a strong federal government to maintain economic competition and social justice but to accept trusts as an economic fact of life.
259.
Ngo Dinh Diem: American ally in South Vietnam from 1954 to 1963; his
repressive regime caused the Communist Viet Cong to thrive in the South
and required increasing American military aid to stop a Communist
takeover. He was killed in a coup in 1963.
260.
Nikita Khrushchev: Soviet leader, 1954-1964; he was an aggressive revolutionary
who hoped to spread Communism into Africa, Asia, and Latin
America. Blame for the Cuban Missile Crisis eventually cost him his leadership
position in the USSR.
261.
Nineteenth Amendment (1920): granted women the right to vote; its ratification capped a movement for women's rights that dated to the Seneca Falls Convention of 1848. Although women were voting in state elections in 12 states when the amendment passed, it enabled 8 million women to vote in the presidential election of 1920.
262.
Non-Intercourse Act (1809): replaced the embargo policy by allowing American trade with all countries except Britain and France; like the Embargo Act, this attempt to use American trade as an instrument of foreign policy failed. British and French interference with U.S. shipping continued and the Non-Intercourse Act was repealed in 1810.
263.
North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) (1949): military alliance of
the United States, ten Western European countries, and Canada; it was considered
a deterrent to Soviet aggression in Europe, with an attack on one
NATO nation to be considered as an attack on all members.
264.
Northwest Ordinance (1787): the major success of Congress under the Articles of Confederation that organized the Northwest Territory for future statehood; the law provided territorial status for a region when its population reached 5,000. At 60,000, the territory could petition for statehood with the same rights as existing states. It set into law the procedure for expanding the nation that eventually led to the admission of many other new states. Also, by outlawing slavery in the Northwest Territory, it represented the first action by the national government against that institution.
265.
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).
266.
Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC): cartel of oilexporting
nations, which used oil as a weapon to alter America's Middle
East policy; it organized a series of oil boycotts that roiled the United States
economy throughout the 1970s.
267.
Ostend Manifesto (1854): 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.
268.
Panic of 1819: severe depression that followed the economic boom of the post-War of 1812 years; the Second National Bank, trying to dampen land speculation and inflation, called loans, raised interest rates, and received the blame for the panic. All this helped divide the commercial interests of the East from the agrarian interests of an expanding West.
269.
Panic of 1837: 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.
270.
Patrick Henry: an early advocate of independence who was a strong opponent of the Stamp Act and great defender of individual rights; in 1775, he declared: "Give me liberty, or give me death."
271.
Peaceful coexistence (1955-1960): period in Soviet-American relations
marked by less tension and by personal diplomacy between Khrushchev
and Eisenhower; the two leaders recognized that, in a nuclear age, competition
between their nations must be peaceful. This thaw in the Cold War was
ended by the U-2 spy plane incident over the Soviet Union in 1960.
272.
Pearl Harbor: United States naval base in Hawaii that was attacked by
Japan on December 7, 1941, with serious U.S. losses: 19 ships sunk or
destroyed and over 2,000 deaths; the attack brought the United States into
World War II.
273.
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.
274.
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.
275.
Philip Randolph: labor and civil rights leader in the 1940s who led the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters; he demanded that FDR create a Fair Employment Practices Commission to investigate job discrimination in war industries. FDR agreed only after Randolph threatened a march on Washington by African Americans.
276.
Pinckney's Treaty (1795): agreement with Spain that opened the Mississippi River to American navigation and granted Americans the right of deposit in New Orleans; Spain agreed to the treaty because it feared that Jay's Treaty included an Anglo-American alliance.
277.
Pineapple Republic: popular name for the government American sugar planters in Hawaii set up in 1894 after they, assisted by the U.S. ambassador there and Marines from a U.S. warship offshore, overthrew the Hawaiian monarch; the rebels immediately sought annexation by the United States, an action supported by many members of Congress. President Cleveland opposed it, and the islands remained independent until 1898, when Congress, with President McKinley's approval, made Hawaii a territory of the United States.
278.
Platt Amendment (1901): an amendment added to Cuba's constitution by the Cuban government, after pressure from the United States; it provided that Cuba would make no treaties that compromised its independence or granted concessions to other countries without U.S. approval. The amendment was abrogated in 1934.
279.
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.
280.
Pontiac's Rebellion (1763): Indian uprising in the Ohio Valley region that killed 2,000 settlers; as a result, the British sought peace with the Indians by prohibiting colonial settlement west of the Appalachian Mountains (the Proclamation of 1763). The Americans saw this ban as an unlawful restriction of their rights and generally ignored it.
281.
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.
282.
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 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.
283.
Pure Food and Drug Act (1906): law that regulated the food and patent medicine industries; some business leaders called it socialistic meddling by the government.
284.
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.
285.
Reagan Revolution: the policies of the first Reagan administration, which
increased defense spending, reduced social programs, and cut taxes; they
were based on "supply side" theory of growing the economy by cutting
government interference and taxes.
286.
Reconstruction Finance Corporation (1932 ): Hoover's economic recovery
program that provided government loans to businesses, banks, and railroads;
it was "pump priming," but it was too little ($300 million) too late to
make any real improvement in the economy.
287.
Red Scare: period of hysteria after World War I over the possible spread of Communism to the United States; aroused by the Russian Revolution (1917), the large number of Russian immigrants in the United States, and a series of terrorist bombings in 1919, it resulted in the denial of civil liberties, mass arrests and deportations, and passage of the restrictive Immigration Act of 1920.
288.
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.
289.
Richard Nixon: Controversial vice president, 1953-1961, and president,
1969-1974, who made his political reputation as an aggressive anti-
Communist crusader; his presidency ended with his resignation during the
Watergate scandal.
290.
Richard Nixon: president, 1969-1974; he extracted the United States from
Vietnam slowly, recognized Communist China, and improved relations
with the Soviet Union. His foreign policy achievements were overshadowed
by the Watergate scandal.
291.
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.
292.
Robert Kennedy: John Kennedy's brother who served as attorney general
and gradually embraced growing civil rights reform; later, as senator from
New York, he made a run for the Democratic presidential nomination. An
assassin ended his campaign on June 6, 1968.
293.
Robert La Follette: progressive governor (1900-1904) and senator (1906-1925); he established the "Wisconsin idea" that reformed the state through direct primaries, tax reform, and anticorruption legislation. La Follette was the Progressive Party's presidential nominee in 1924.
294.
Roger Williams: Puritan who challenged the church to separate itself from the government and to give greater recognition of the rights of Native Americans; he was banished in 1635 and founded Rhode Island. (Critics called it Rogue Island.)
295.
Ronald Reagan: president, 1981-1989, who led a conservative movement
against detente with the Soviet Union and the growth of the federal government;
some people credit him with America's victory in the Cold War while
others fault his insensitive social agenda and irresponsible fiscal policies.
296.
Roosevelt Corollary (1903): Addendum to the Monroe Doctrine issued after the Dominican Republic got into financial trouble with several European nations; the United States assumed the right to intervene in Latin American countries to promote "civilized" behavior and protect American interests.
297.
Rosa Parks: NAACP member who initiated the Montgomery Bus Boycott in
1955 when she was arrested for violating Jim Crow rules on a bus; her action
and the long boycott that followed became an icon of the quest for civil rights
and focused national attention on boycott leader Martin Luther King, Jr.
298.
Rugged individualism: Hoover's philosophy that called on Americans to
help each other during the Depression without direct government relief; he
feared too much government help would weaken the American character,
endanger liberty, and lead to totalitarianism in the United States.
299.
Sacco and Vanzetti: Italian radicals who became symbols of the Red Scare of the 1920s; arrested (1920), tried, and executed (1927) for a robbery /murder, they were believed by many to have been innocent but convicted because of their immigrant status and radical political beliefs.
300.
Salem Witchhunt: period of hysteria in 1692, when a group of teenaged girls accused neighbors of bewitching them; in ten months, nineteen people were executed and hundreds imprisoned. The hysteria subsided when the girls accused the more prominent individuals in the colony, including the governor's wife.
301.
Salutary neglect: policy that British followed from 1607 to 1763, by which they interfered very little with the colonies; through this lack of control, the colonies thrived and prospered. It was an attempt to end this policy that helped create the friction that led to the American Revolution.
302.
Salutary neglect: British policy before 1763 of generally leaving the colonies alone to conduct their own internal affairs; the abandonment of this policy after 1763 was a major factor leading to revolution and independence.
303.
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.
304.
Samuel Adams: agitator and leader of the Sons of Liberty, who supported
independence as soon as the British veered from salutary neglect; he was the primary leader of the Boston Tea Party and later a delegate to the Continental Congress.
305.
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.
306.
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.
307.
Saturday Night Massacre (October 1973): name given to an incident in
which Nixon ordered Attorney General Elliot Richardson to fire Archibald
Cox, the special prosecutor who was relentlessly investigating Watergate;
Richardson refused and resigned along with his deputy, who also refused to
carry out Nixon's order. A subordinate then fired Cox. The incident created
a firestorm of protest in the country.
308.
Scalawags: white southerners who cooperated with and served in Reconstruction governments; generally eligible to vote, they were usually considered traitors to their states.
309.
Scopes Monkey Trial (1925): "Monkey Trial" over John Scopes's teaching of evolution in his biology classroom in violation of a Tennessee law; it pitted the Bible, fundamentalism, and William Jennings Bryan against evolution, modernism, and Clarence Darrow. Scopes was convicted, but fundamentalism was damaged and discouraged by the trial.
310.
Second Bank of the United States: national bank organized in 1816; closely modeled after the first Bank of the United States, it held federal tax receipts and regulated the amount of money circulating in the economy. The Bank proved to be very unpopular among western land speculators and farmers, especially after the Panic of 1819.
311.
Second Front: proposed Anglo-American invasion of France to relieve
the Soviets, who were fighting a German invasion of the USSR; originally
scheduled for 1942, it was not delivered until D-Day in June 1944. This was
a divisive issue in Soviet relations with the United States and Britain during
the war and after.
312.
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.
313.
Second New Deal (1935-1936): name given to a series of proposals that
FDR requested and Congress passed to reinvigorate the New Deal as recovery
from the Depression began to lag; they were antibusiness in tone and
intent and included the Public Utility Holding Company Act, Social
Security Act, National Labor Relations Act, and the Wealth Tax Act.
314.
Seven Years War: fought between England and France, 1756-1763; known as the French and Indian War in the colonies, it started in 1754, over control of the Ohio River Valley and resulted in France's withdrawal from North America. It was the impetus for Parliament's taxing policy that led to the American Revolution.
315.
Shays's Rebellion: an uprising in western Massachusetts between August 1786 and February 1787 that dosed the courts and threatened revolution in the state; the central government's inability to suppress the revolt reinforced the belief that the Articles of Confederation needed to be strengthened or abandoned.
316.
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.
317.
Silent Majority: label Nixon gave to middle-class Americans who supported
him, obeyed the laws, and wanted "peace with honor" in Vietnam;
he contrasted this group with students and civil rights activists who disrupted
the country with protests in the late 1960s and early 1970s.
318.
Sit-ins: protests by black college students, 1960-1961, who took seats at
"whites only" lunch counters and refused to leave until served; in 1960 over
50,000 participated in sit-ins across the South. Their success prompted the
formation of the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee.
319.
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.
320.
Social Gospel: movement that began in Protestant churches in the late nineteenth century to apply the teachings of the Bible to the problems of the industrial age; led by Washington Gladden and Walter Rauschenbusch, it aroused the interest of many clergymen in securing social justice for the urban poor. The thinking of Jane Addams, Theodore Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, and other secular reformers was influenced by the movement as well.
321.
Social Security Act (1935): required both workers and their employer to
contribute to a federally run pension fund for retired workers; it also provided
federal disability and unemployment assistance. Although benefits
were meager, it was the first significant government program to provide for
retired, disabled, or unemployed Americans.
322.
Society of Friends (Quakers): church founded by George Fox which believed in "The Inner Light "-a direct, individualistic experience with God; the church was strongly opposed to the Anglican Church in England and the Congregationalist Church in America. In 1681, William Penn established Pennsylvania as a haven for Quakers persecuted in England and in the colonies.
323.
Sons of Liberty: street gangs that formed during the Stamp Act crisis to enforce the boycotts and prevent the distribution and sale of the tax stamps; they were the vanguard of the Revolution as they intimidated British officials with violence.
324.
Specie Circular (1836): 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.
325.
Spiro Agnew: vice president, 1969-1973, and a vocal critic of antiwar and
civil rights opponents of the Nixon administration; he resigned the vice
presidency in 1973 when it was discovered he had accepted bribes as governor
of Maryland and as vice president.
326.
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.
327.
Sputnik: Soviet satellite launched in September 1957; the launch set off a
panic that the Communists were winning the space race and were superior
in math and science education. It gave impetus for the Nation Defense
Education Act of 1958 to improve schools.
328.
Stagflation: name given the economic condition throughout most of the
1970s in which prices rose rapidly (inflation) but without economic growth
(stagnation). Unemployment rose along with inflation. In large part, these
conditions were the economic consequences of rising oil prices.
329.
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.
330.
Stamp Act (1765): a tax on over fifty items such as pamphlets, newspapers, playing cards, and dice; it set off a strong protest among the colonists, who claimed it was an internal tax designed only to raise revenue and therefore unlawful for Parliament to levy.
331.
Stamp Act Congress (1765): met in New York City to protest the Stamp Act; nine of the thirteen colonies petitioned the king and organized a boycott that eventually helped to force the repeal of the tax. This
meeting and action was a major step to colonial unity and resistance of British authority.
332.
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.
333.
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.
334.
Stono Rebellion: slave rebellion in South Carolina in September 1739; twenty to eighty slaves burned seven plantations, killed twenty whites, and tried to escape to Florida. The rebellion was crushed. All the slaves were killed and decapitated, and their heads were put on display as a deterrent to future uprisings.
335.
Strict constructionist: person who interprets the Constitution very narrowly; a strict constructionist believes that a power not explicitly stated in the Constitution could not be exercised by government. Historically, strict constructionists have hoped to restrict authority of the central government and preserve states' rights.
336.
Strom Thurmond: Democratic governor of South Carolina who headed
the States' Rights Party (Dixiecrats); he ran for president in 1948 against
Truman and his mild civil rights proposals and eventually joined the
Republican Party.
337.
Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) (1962): radical political organization
founded by Tom Hayden and others; it set forth its ideals in the Port
Huron Statement: government should promote equality, fairness, and be
responsive to people. It was probably the most important student protest
group of the 1960s.
338.
Sugar Act (1764): designed to raise revenue by stiffening the Molasses Act (1733), establishing new customs regulations, and trying smugglers in British vice-admiralty courts; this was the first attempt to tax the colonies in order to raise revenue rather than regulate trade. It actually lowered the tax on imported sugar in hopes of discouraging smugglers and thereby increasing collection of the tax.
339.
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.
340.
Taft-Hartley Act (1946): antilabor law passed over Truman's veto; it
provided a "cooling off" period wherein the president could force striking
workers back to work for 80 days . It also outlawed closed shops and
allowed states to pass right-to-work laws.
341.
Tariff of Abominations: me 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.
342.
Tea Pot Dome Scandal: biggest scandal of Harding's administration; Secretary of Interior Albert Fall illegally leased government oil fields in the West to private oil companies; Fall was later convicted of bribery and became the first Cabinet official to serve prison time (1931-1932).
343.
Teller Amendment (1898): part of the declaration of war against Spain in which Congress pledged that Cuba would be freed and not annexed by the United States as a result of the conflict.
344.
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.
345.
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.
346.
Tet Offensive (January 1968): series of Communist attacks on 44 South
Vietnamese cities; although the Viet Cong suffered a major defeat, the
attacks ended the American view that the war was winnable and destroyed
the nation' s will to escalate the war further.
347.
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.
348.
The Maine: U.S. battleship sent to Havana in early 1898 to protect American interests; it blew up mysteriously in February 1898 killing 266 men. American newspapers blamed the Spanish, helping to cause the war. In 1976, it was discovered that the ship blew up accidentally.
349.
Theocracy: Government organized and administered by the church; in
Massachusetts Bay colony, only church members could vote in town meetings. The government levied taxes on both church members and nonmembers and required attendance for all at religious services.
350.
Theodore Roosevelt: assistant secretary of the navy, who headed a volunteer regiment in the Spanish-American War; nicknamed the Rough Riders by the press, the First Volunteer Cavalry consisted of Roosevelt's colorful friends from the West and his Harvard days. After the war, Roosevelt "rode" his Rough Riders image to the vice presidency and then the presidency of the United States.
351.
Thirteenth Amendment (1865): Abolished slavery everywhere in the United States.
352.
Thomas Dewey: wice-defeated Republican candidate for president
(1944, 1948); his overconfidence and lackadaisical effort in 1948 allowed
Truman to overcome his large lead and pull off the greatest political upset
in American history.
353.
Thomas Jefferson: lead author of the Declaration of Independence; in it, he explained the colonists' philosophy of government and the reasons for independence. He wrote that governments that did not protect unalienable rights should be changed.
354.
Thomas Jefferson: first secretary of state, who led opposition to the Hamilton/Washington plan to centralize power at the expense of the states; after founding the Democratic Republican Party to oppose these plans, Jefferson was elected vice president in 1796 and president in 1800.
355.
Thomas Paine: writer of Common Sense, an electrifying pamphlet of January 1776 calling for a break with England; written with great passion and force, it swept the colonies and provided a clear rationale for colonial independence.
356.
Three-Fifths Compromise: agreement at the Constitutional Convention that broke the impasse over taxation and representation in the House of Representatives; the delegates agreed to count slaves as three-fifths of a person for both. This formula had been used in 1783 to make financial assessments among the states under the Articles.
357.
Thurgood Marshall: leading attorney for NAACP in 1940s and 1950s,
who headed the team in Brown vs. the Board of Education case; later,
Lyndon Johnson appointed him the first black justice on the United States
Supreme Court.
358.
Townshend Acts (1767): levied taxes on imported items such as paper, glass, and tea; these taxes were designed to address colonial resistance to "internal taxation" like the Stamp Act, which had no connection to trade and was intended only to raise revenue. However, the colonials viewed the Townshend Acts as revenue-raising measures and refused to pay these taxes as well.
359.
Trail of Tears (1838): 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.
360.
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.
361.
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.
362.
Treaty of Ghent (1815): agreement that ended the War of 1812 but was silent on the causes of the war; all captured territory was returned and unresolved issues such as ownership of the Great Lakes were left to future negotiation.
363.
Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo (1848): greement 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 that nation's territory.
364.
Treaty of Paris (1898): ended the Spanish-American War; under its terms, Cuba gained independence from Spain, and the United States acquired Guam, Puerto Rico, and the Philippines. The United States paid Spain twenty million dollars for the Philippines.
365.
Treaty of Versailles (1919): ended World War I; it was much harder on Germany than Wilson wanted but not as punitive as France and England desired. It was harsh enough, however, to set stage for Hitler's rise to power in Germany in 1930s.
366.
Truman Doctrine (1947): the announced policy of President Truman to
provide aid to free nations who faced internal or external threats of a
Communist takeover; announced in conjunction with a $400 million economic
aid package to Greece and Turkey, it was successful in helping those
countries put down Communist guerrilla movements and is considered to
be the first U.S. action of the Cold War.
367.
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.
368.
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.
369.
Upton Sinclair: socialist muckraker who wrote The Jungle (1906) in which he hoped to indict the capitalist system but instead helped convince Congress to pass the Meat Inspection Act (1906), which cleaned up the meat industry.
370.
Valeriano Weyler: Spanish governor in charge of suppressing the Cuban revolution, 1896-1898; his brutal "reconcentration" tactics earned him the nickname of the "Butcher" in America's yellow press.
371.
Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions: reaction against the Sedition Act; written by Madison for Virginia and Jefferson for Kentucky, they stated that when the national government exceeded its powers under the Constitution, the states had the right to nullify the law. Essentially, the resolutions held that the Constitution was a compact among the states and they were its final arbiter.
372.
Virginia Plan: Edmund Randolph's and James Madison's proposal for a new government that would give Congress increased taxing and legislative power; it called for two houses of Congress-an elected lower house and an upper house appointed by the lower house. Because seats in Congress would be apportioned according to the states' populations, this plan was favored by the large states.
373.
Virtual representation: idea offered by Britain to colonists' demands for representation in Parliament and to establish lawful authority to tax them; the explanation was that Parliament was a collective representation of all Englishmen regardless of where they lived. According to this argument, a group's interest was represented in London by virtue of it being English. Colonial leaders rejected this position.
374.
W. E. B. DuBois: black intellectual who challenged Booker T. Washington's ideas on combating Jim Crow; he called for the black community to demand immediate equality and was a founding member of the National Association for the Advancement of Color People (NAACP).
375.
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.
376.
War Hawks: young Congressmen in the 12th Congress from the South and West who demanded war with Britain; led by Henry Clay and John Calhoun, they hoped to annex Canada, defend U.S. maritime rights, and end troubles with Native Americans in the Trans-Appalachian West.
377.
Warren Burger: Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, 1969-1986; although
considered more conservative in leadership than Earl Warren, his court
upheld school busing, a woman's right to an abortion, and ordered Nixon
to surrender the Watergate tapes.
378.
Warren Harding: weak but affable president (1921-1923) who allowed his appointees to loot and cheat the government; after his death, political and personal scandals tarnished his presidency. Harding is rated as a failure as president by most historians.
379.
Watergate scandal: name applied to a series of events that began when
the Nixon White House tried to place illegal phone taps on Democrats in
June 1972; the burglars were caught, and rather than accept the legal and
political fallout, Nixon and his aides obstructed the investigation, which
cost him his office and sent several of his top aides to prison.
380.
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 funding internal improvements. It broke apart over the slavery issue in the early 1850s.
381.
Whiskey Rebellion: uprising in western Pennsylvania in 1794 over an excise tax levied on whiskey; farmers saw the tax as an unjust and illegal levy, like the Stamp Act. President Washington crushed the rebellion with overwhelming force and thereby demonstrated the power of the new government to maintain order and carry out the law.
382.
William Borah: led a group of senators who were irreconcilably opposed to joining the League of Nations; he promoted ideals of traditional isolationism and believed the League was "an entangling foreign alliance."
383.
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.
384.
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.
385.
William McKinley: president of the United States, 1897-1901; a reluctant expansionist, he led America during the Spanish-American War. His assassination in 1901 brought "that damn cowboy" Theodore Roosevelt to the presidency.
386.
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.
387.
William Penn: Quaker founder of Pennsylvania; he intended it to be a Quaker haven, but all religions were tolerated. The colony had very good relations with Native Americans at first.
388.
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.
389.
William Seward: secretary. of state, 1861-1869; a dedicated expansionist, he purchased Alaska from Russia, acquired Midway Island, and tried to buy the Virgin Islands in 1867.
390.
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.
391.
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.
392.
Woodrow Wilson (New Freedom): successful Democratic presidential nominee in 1912 and his progressive program that viewed trusts as evil and called for their destruction rather than their regulation; his social and political philosophy drew heavily on the ideas of Louis Brandeis. As president (1913-1921), Wilson led the nation through World War I.
393.
Woodstock: three-day rock music festival (August 15-17, 1969) held on
a farm in New York's Sullivan County; attended by some 300,000 young
people, this remarkable and unusually peaceful event is considered the high
point of the counterculture in the 1960s and 1970s.
394.
XYZ Affair: diplomatic effort by President John Adams to soothe the French, who were upset over Jay's Treaty and American neutrality in their conflict with Britain; three American delegates to France were told they must offer a bribe before any negotiations could begin. They refused, and the humiliation heightened tensions between the two countries and set off war hysteria in the United States.
395.
Yalta Conference (February 1945): meeting of Roosevelt, Stalin, and
Winston Churchill to discuss postwar plans and Soviet entry into the war meeting of Roosevelt, Stalin, and Winston Churchill to discuss postwar plans and Soviet entry into the war
396.
Yellow journalism: sensational newspaper stories from Joseph Pulitzer's New York World and William Randolph Hearst's New York Journal that stirred Americans against Spanish rule in Cuba; this media coverage proved a force for war in 1898.
397.
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.
398.
Zimmerman Note (1917): a secret German proposal to Mexico for an alliance against the United States; Germany offered to help Mexico get back territories it lost to the United States in 1848. Britain alerted the Wilson administration to the plan, and Mexico refused the idea.
