USHC 5.5 Key Terms/Ideas/People/Events & Vocabulary

Key Terms/Ideas/People/Events

·  Checks and balances – constitutional principle that gives each branch of government (executive, legislative & judicial) the ability to restrain the power of another branch; in this case, referring to the ability of the President to negotiate and sign treaties, but it is the US Senate that actually ratifies it

·  Versailles Conference – location of peace conference; the Big Four (Great Britain, France, Italy & the US) dictated the peace to Germany; the put in war reparations and a war guilt clause on Germany; will indirectly lead to WW2; Wilson made many concessions in order to get his League of Nations included

·  League of Nations – international peace organization created in the Treaty of Versailles; Wilson gave up many of his 14 points in order to get the other Allied nations to agree to the League; US will never join the league yet will send observers during the 1920s

·  Collective security – the main issue the Senate had with the League of Nations charter; it would require the United States to become involved in military action without Senate approval; a simple compromise to remove that portion would have been met with Senate approval, but Wilson refused to compromise

·  President Wilson – president during World War I; refused to compromise on the League of Nations; he took his case to the American people and had a stroke while doing that; he remained debilitated for the rest of his presidency

·  Cox – Democratic candidate for president; supported Wilson’s internationalism ideals; FDR was his Vice-President running mate; Cox loses

·  Harding – Republican candidate for president; promised to return to normalcy; will win in a landslide

·  ‘Normalcy’ – what candidate Warren Harding promised a return to; the government would stop all the Progressive ideas and remove itself from world affairs and focus on domestic issues; the American public wanted this and Harding will win in a landslide

·  Isolationism – non-involvement in world affairs; the US public supported this policy because of the disillusionment from World War I

·  Internationalism – involvement in world affairs; the US rejected this policy in the post-World War One era; the US was disillusioned from the war because it did not solve any real issues; lots of people died and lots made money, but nothing was “fixed”; with the US being the world’s economic power, it had to partake in some issues, such as the conferences that limited the size of navies

·  ‘Good Neighbor Policy’ – new foreign policy towards Latin America during the 1920s; remove any soldiers from Latin America and become more friendly and open; reverse the feelings of resentment that resulted from the Big Stick, Dollar & Moral Diplomacies of the early 1900s and 1910s

·  Dawes and Young Plans – economic plan to loan US money to Germany so they could make their war reparation payments to France & Great Britain; these two countries would turn around and pay us back for money they loaned during the war; a transfer of debt from the Allied Powers to Germany; ultimately, the German loan will be forgiven

·  Crash of 1929 – Stock Market Crash that signaled the beginning of the Great Depression

·  Great Depression – severe economic downturn in the 1930s; lasting the entire decade; made Americans look inward at domestic issues as opposed to world affairs (rise to Hitler & militaristic Japan)

·  Neutrality Acts – laws passed during the 1930s because of information revealed in testimony to Congress; it was discovered that the United States was “manipulated” into World War I by businesses so they would earn a profit; Congress wished to prevent the US from getting involved again; these laws will hinder FDR’s efforts to assist the Allies at the start of World War II

Vocabulary

USHC 5.5 Key Terms/Ideas/People/Events & Vocabulary

·  Domain – purview or area

·  Drafting – preparing or writing

·  Auspices – backings or supports

·  Partisanship – narrow-mindedness; one sidedness

·  Outright – completely or totally

·  Reservations – misgivings or doubts

·  Midst - middle

·  Debilitated – incapacitated or out of action

·  Referendum – vote or plebiscite

·  Idealism – optimism or impracticality

·  Disillusioned – disenchanted or disheartened

·  Brutality – cruelty or viciousness

·  Landslide – large victory

·  War reparations – money for war damages

·  Hands-off – detached

·  Heed – attention or notice

·  Testimony – proof & evidence