Final Exam Review - The Top Things to Know for US History
Units 2 and 3
1. First American Party System:
Democratic Republicans / FederalistsLed by Thomas Jefferson / Led by Alexander Hamilton
Strict interpretation of the Constitution - government only has those powers specifically spelled out / Loose interpretation of the Constitution - government has extended powers due to "necessary and proper" clause
Popular in the South / Popular in the North
Supported by farmers, rural Americans / Supported by merchants, urban Americans
2. The Whiskey Rebellion: Pennsylvania farmers rebelled against the new American government over taxes on whiskey; President Washington used the Army to put down the rebellion, demonstrating that the federal government had the capability and will to enforce its laws
3. Washington's Farewell Address: Given as Washington was leaving the presidency; he warned that 1) the US should avoid becoming involved in other nations' wars and conflicts, 2) political parties should be avoided because they were divisive, and 3) US citizens should be careful to elect only morally upright men into political office
4. Alien & Sedition Acts: laws passed by Federalist Congress which made it illegal to criticize the government; Democratic-Republicans responded with the Virginia & Kentucky Resolutions which spoke out against the laws and proposed that the individual states were not obligated to enforce laws which they believed to be unconstitutional, a concept which came to be known as the Doctrine of Nullification. This issue of states' rights vs. federal law would be one of the causes of the American Civil War.
5. Marbury v Madison: Supreme Court case which established the precedent of judicial review, or the doctrine whereby the Supreme Court has the authority to decide whether or not a law passed by Congress is in violation of the Constitution
6. Louisiana Purchase: 1803 acquisition of the Louisiana Territory by President Jefferson from France; doubled the size of the US and gave the US control of the Mississippi River
7. War of 1812: war fought between the US and Great Britain; US had tried to avoid war through the Embargo Act which banned trade with Britain and France, but the Act was too damaging to the US economy. When trade resumed, the British Navy practice of impressment, or stopping American ships at sea and forcing sailors to join the crews of British ships, angered many Americans; this, coupled with the belief that the British were arming the Indians along the western frontier and a desire to add Canada to the US led some American politicians, known as Warhawks, to call for war with Great Britain. After the US declared war, the British burned Washington DC and generally dominated the war, but the US persevered, ultimately forcing the British to agree to peace in 1814. The Battle of New Orleans, actually fought after the peace treaty had been signed but before word had reached the Americas, was a great American victory and made Andrew Jackson into a national hero. Following the war, Americans briefly set aside their sectionalist beliefs and took great pride in simply being Americans, a concept known as nationalism, during what came to be known as the Era of Good Feelings.
8. The Hartford Convention: meeting of New England Federalists who opposed the War of 1812 as foolish and unwinnable; they openly proposed that New England secede from (leave) the United States. After the US survived the war and won the Battle of New Orleans, the Federalists looked unpatriotic and lost popular support, quickly disappearing from the American political scene.
Goal 4
9. The American System: plan by President John Quincy Adams and Secretary of State Henry Clay which called for making dramatic improvements to transportation infrastructure and sharply raising tariffs on imported goods as a means of promoting and protecting American industries. Opposed in the South because few of the improvements were in the South and the high tariffs hurt Southern cotton farmers.
10: The Missouri Compromise: 1820 agreement which temporarily resolved the issue of slavery; Missouri was admitted to the Union as a slave state while Maine was admitted as a free state to maintain balance in Congress between free and slave states; also created a line of latitude south of which slavery would be allowed in future states and north of which slavery would not be allowed in future states
11: The Monroe Doctrine: foreign policy statement issued in 1823 by President James Monroe in which European powers were warned to stay out of the Americas and were forbidden to establish or reclaim colonies in the Western Hemisphere; basically declared the Americas to be under the "protection" of the US
12: Eli Whitney: inventor of the cotton gin, a device which mechanically cleaned cotton and dramatically increased the efficiency of the plantation system; led to the rise of "King Cotton" or the South's complete economic dependence on the cotton trade and, therefore, the South's need to protect slavery at all costs
13: The Spoils System: the standard practice by newly inaugurated presidents of firing the entire bureaucracy of the federal government and replacing them with their own friends and supporters; most often associated with President Andrew Jackson who claimed the motto "To the victor go the spoils"
14: The Indian Removal Act of 1830: Bill signed into law by President Jackson which required all Native Americans living east of the Mississippi River to relocate to the Oklahoma Territory; was challenged in court by the Cherokee tribe and in the case of Worcester v Georgia, the Supreme Court ruled in favor of the Indians. President Jackson, however, refused to enforce the Court's decision and instead forcibly relocated the Cherokee and other tribes with military force; the long forced march from Georgia to Oklahoma came to be known as the Trail of Tears because of the hardships faced by the Native Americans along the way and the thousands of Indians who did not survive the journey.
15: The Tariff of Abominations: extremely high tariff signed into law by John Quincy Adams which badly hurt southern farmers; once again led to a nullification crisis when South Carolina refused to enforce the tariff and threatened secession from the Union if the tariff was not repealed. In the end, a compromise was reached in which the tariff was rolled back over several years.
16: Pet Banks: small state and private banks into which President Jackson transferred the wealth of the federal government in order to force the closure of the Second Bank of the United States, a federally run central bank whose continued existence he opposed on the grounds that it had no constitutional basis.
17: Cultural Nationalism: the development in the early 19th century of a distinctly "American" culture, especially as reflected in the visual arts of the Hudson River School of Artists, in the Romantic-style literature of authors like James Fennimore Cooper and Nathaniel Hawthorne, and in the evolution of a distinctly American form of the English language as documented by Noah Webster in his dictionary.
18: The Mexican War: war fought between the US and Mexico between 1846 and 1848, primarily caused by a dispute over control of Texas, which the US had admitted as a state but which Mexico still claimed as part of its territory; the US also had a strong desire to acquire the Mexican territory of California which would allow access to the Pacific Ocean and help fulfill our Manifest Destiny, or our perception of a God-given mandate to control the American continent. After defeating the Mexicans, the US acquired the Mexican Cession, or the area that today includes California, Arizona, Nevada, and New Mexico as part of the Treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo. All of this newly acquired territory, however, only served to reopen the debate over slavery in the US as Northerners sought to prevent the spread of slavery into the former Mexican territories and Southerners fought to protect their right to bring slaves into the new territories under the agreements laid out in the Missouri Compromise of 1820.